NPR

_Os_ wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 7:10 pm

Yeeb wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 5:45 pm You are abit wide of the mark here , if UK plc closed all these former colonies tax advantages then all that money would merely flow elsewhere . Tax differentials are hardly new , US states differ , eu allowed Ireland to undercut and attract certain businesses rapidly , Spain has canaries & ceurta .. it really isn’t a unique to Uk problem, and the 2/3 thing is perhaps down as much to banking culture and power of the city than formal political ties.

See also panama, Liberia as port of convenience, Swiss cantons..

It depends what rules were brought in to "end it". The money wouldn't just automatically all go elsewhere, because the jurisdiction needs multiple elements for the money to be safe and usable: rule of law, a banking system, not black listed. The additional benefits are the tax regime, privacy, and things like residency rules. The primary benefit for these people is being able to keep huge amounts of money hidden.

The UK offshore system dwarfs the entire rest of the offshore system, so saying something in the UK has "offshored" when it's usually still inside the UK system, doesn't really work. The comparison to US states doesn't really work either, there's US federal taxes. The comparison to Ireland doesn't work either, because this isn't about some mythical explanation about why companies invest in Ireland that ignores Ireland's EU membership and pretends it's only about tax rules not much different to Estonia or Malta (also EU members) ... this is about where oligarchs park billions upon billions to keep it safe and hidden. A piggybank isn't about setting up a company in Dublin that actually does stuff somewhere in the world.

The UK is such a big player in this, that it is also about setting up an offshore company (usually still inside the UK) that actually does stuff somewhere in the world. But that's peanuts compared to the piggybank.

You would move your piggybank from the UK to fucking Liberia because of some additional tax? Seriously? The Liberian corporate registry is outsourced to America (probably not so private then), the phrase "Liberian banking industry" doesn't inspire confidence, nor does there being a low grade civil war next door in Ivory Coast inspire confidence. It's only used for registering shipping (the admin of that is also outsourced to America) because those are physical movable assets that aren't in Liberia. There are in truth very few places safe enough and with enough scale to move the money to.

If you had 10 ordinary people in the UK working online through an offshore company and not paying HMRC (on the company profits at least, obviously they're living on something so something is coming into the UK), there was a crackdown on that and most of them left the UK, but the minority who remained started paying HMRC on all their company profits. Would you see that as a bad thing and a huge loss?

I have no idea where you are wandering around with this but I think you need to read up on domicile , deemed & trusts a bit, as it seems you are giving UK’s power a bit too much credit re influence. A tax loophole and differential is a tax loophole and differential so unclear why somehow federal ones don’t count for you or why according to you it’s only a Uk thing.
Companies / funds / shells can and do move nominal country for tax advantages all the time , it was literally what I did in a couple of my roles in the past. Have a read about German cum-ex scandal which I’ve mentioned to bimbo & TSG on PR a couple of times , that had zero to do with Uk bar the fact that the people making the decisions were in London (although technically they were not ) and their lackeys (of which I was one ) were technically in London.

I like neeps wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:18 am I do think we'll see a lot of urban voters move to the Greens from Labour as a protest vote against Starmer but I don't think it'll be hugely significant overall and it's probably not because he was hobnobbing with Blair two days ago. More because he's been modelling himself on Blair for two years.

Starmer is going to win the next GE without saying anything substantive. That's what Selby and Frome last night suggested anyway.

I definitely think having a good laugh with Blair helped the Greens, anyone rocking up to a by-election voting for a party that was nowhere in the previous election and has no chance in the by-election either, is the definition of a protest voter. A protest voter needs something to protest.

Everything is pointing towards a Labour majority and historic Tory defeat. People not moving from the Greens to Labour says that too, if they really thought the Tories mattered they would be shifting to Labour. About half the Greens polling usually melts into Labour come an general election, looks like it won't happen this time.

Lib Dems despite the good by-elections, seem to have fucked it a bit. They've decided to become a Tory adjacent party and have abandoned being an equal distance from both the Tories and Labour. They're now pro-NIMBY and it's hard to work out what their Brexit position is (when their brand was being the most pro-EU). They've also decided to informally work with Labour (whilst the Greens don't and are holding their vote or growing). They should be polling above 20%, but all they're saying is "vote to remove the Tories, which usually means not voting for us". This Lib Dem positioning only works in the current situation where the Tories are in government and hated, it struggles when they're left with only Tory facing seats they hold or can win (very close to that now), and the Tories are the official opposition and getting most of the airtime saying Labour are shit.

S/Lt_Phillips wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:28 am

SaintK wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:12 am

I like neeps wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:03 am

ULEZ isn't even Khan's policy choice. Shapps made expansion of ULEZ a requirement for increased tfls funding settlement last year.

And it was Johnson who originally introduced it.

It's not even that stringent. My 2004 petrol* car passes the standard (same with the Glasgow zone). 2004.

I suspect there's lots of wailing and moaning and reading the Daily Mail without actually checking the facts, as usual.

*Diesels will be more impacted, granted, though I checked my previous car, a 2016 focus, and that was fine too. So how many people will actually be affected?

Older diesels mainly, which will presumably piss many taxi drivers off.

A 2016 diesel will be EURO 6 which is currently the most stringent of the standards, I think it came intro effect in 2014 but that is only for cars retailed from that point on - it's of course not retrospective. Most ULEZ require Euro 6. There was a significant jump (or required drop) for NOx between EURO 5 and EURO 6, from 0.18 g/KM to 0.08. (eta - just to make clear, most EURO 5 engines are not going to be OK for ULEZ just purely on target limits, although I'm not clear if EURO 6 is actually a requirement for ULEZ or just the specific car's emissions levels)

Diesels are horrifically more polluting than any modern petrol car (by that I mean anything petrol with a catalytic converter and lambda sensor, so it's barely producing any CO or NOx). By their very nature Diesels are very, very hard to get clean - there's all sorts of workarounds such as ammonia additives (adblue - and really needed to get NOX down to EURO 6 requirements), exhaust gas recirculation (Which helps with NOX but is complex), particulate traps etc, which are there to try to address the worst excesses and which older engines won't have.

Many of these problems were caused by the relentless drive to drop CO2 emissions, which diesels can help with - at the expense of just about every other horrible pollutant. Prior to the VW emissions scandal, where people started to look more closely, no-one really seemed to care. I worked at a University which had huge research funding from Ford for diesel research (amongst other things) and many of us not involved in that research area could really work out why there wasn't more pushback on diesel given it's so intrinsically polluting.

I like neeps wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:03 am

C69 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 7:02 am Labour will need to sort ULEZ out apparently.
However they still increased their vote vote in Uxbridge by 6%

Clearly the nod and a wink will mean Labour and Lim Dems will know exactly where to focus their campaigning at the next GE.
The Red Wall Tory MPs will be totally wiped out and it's going to be carnage.

I think the Tories arrogance is still astounding.

Rayner acknowledged that Khan's ULEZ expansion is a vote loser so let's see a bit more flip flopping

ULEZ isn't even Khan's policy choice. Shapps made expansion of ULEZ a requirement for increased tfls funding settlement last year.

I think you might need to fact check that one on ULEZ. Everything I have read suggests it was Khan’s decision.

Anyone who lives in or near London knows ULEZ is a massive pain, hitting far more people than they seem to realise. It feels like a bad time to have to pay another 10K or whatever for a new car that I certainly wasn't planning on, and naturally no compensation for anyone who isn't on a benefit.
I'd respect Khan more if he had actually stood for election on the platform of increasing the ULEZ area rather than just deciding to expand it after he was elected.

Not surprised this has cost them plenty of votes, it's just another cost that people don't need on top of all the mortgage and food and energy bills.

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:46 am

I like neeps wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:03 am

C69 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 7:02 am Labour will need to sort ULEZ out apparently.
However they still increased their vote vote in Uxbridge by 6%

Clearly the nod and a wink will mean Labour and Lim Dems will know exactly where to focus their campaigning at the next GE.
The Red Wall Tory MPs will be totally wiped out and it's going to be carnage.

I think the Tories arrogance is still astounding.

Rayner acknowledged that Khan's ULEZ expansion is a vote loser so let's see a bit more flip flopping

ULEZ isn't even Khan's policy choice. Shapps made expansion of ULEZ a requirement for increased tfls funding settlement last year.

I think you might need to fact check that one on ULEZ. Everything I have read suggests it was Khan’s decision.

https://www.onlondon.co.uk/letter-from- ... arge-zone/

They made it a condition of the TFL funding.

You need a good public transport system as the carrot to the ULEZ stick. I don't know what public transport is like in Greater London but in and around central London it has always appeared to me that the public transport system is good and safe when you consider how many millions of people are moving around every day.

A car is convenient and some people really do need to use one every day, but I'm not convinced you need one of the new Land Rover Defenders to take the kids to school in West Hampstead. Car clubs are becoming more common place and are used more around here, I don't use my car much now, if it fails the MOT (it's 20 years old) it's getting binned and I'll rely on public transport and hiring when needed.

In my street there are a good dozen non-compliant diesel cars/vans, equating to about 15% of the total vehicles. Some I checked on AutoTrader and their resale price was 15k in several cases. To get an equivalent compliant replacement was going to cost them another 10k.

For some reason the pensioners have not even heard about it. A lot I see walking dogs had no idea they were impacted by it, they are scared by the cost.

A lot of those pensioners said they have to give up driving, Khan’s aim anyway, but hospital visits make this impossible for many with multiple buses needed and a journey time of well over an hour. Car journey takes 15mins.

There is massive potential for a Labour routing in the outer boroughs of London.

Yeeb wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:35 am I have no idea where you are wandering around with this but I think you need to read up on domicile , deemed & trusts a bit, as it seems you are giving UK’s power a bit too much credit re influence. A tax loophole and differential is a tax loophole and differential so unclear why somehow federal ones don’t count for you or why according to you it’s only a Uk thing.
Companies / funds / shells can and do move nominal country for tax advantages all the time , it was literally what I did in a couple of my roles in the past. Have a read about German cum-ex scandal which I’ve mentioned to bimbo & TSG on PR a couple of times , that had zero to do with Uk bar the fact that the people making the decisions were in London (although technically they were not ) and their lackeys (of which I was one ) were technically in London.

I need to read up on domicile? Are you sure?

It's obvious where I'm going. You're saying the rich cannot be taxed because they'll move their money elsewhere. I'm saying multiple offshore jurisdictions are ultimately within the power of the UK parliament to control/end. For the difference between US states and the UK system, just compare say the Cayman Island's tax regime to any US state, the other difference is Americans are aware Texas exists and is American, not really the same for the British and the BOTs. There aren't actually many places for the money to move to where it's going to be secure and hidden (it's certainly not moving to Liberia ffs), that means avoiding the US and EU system entirely and avoiding the places it came from (Russia/China/ME/etc). And if it does move, who cares, what stays will actually start paying HMRC. Or the UK can persist with two systems under one roof whilst running a structural deficit and a growing national debt, in a country of 70 millions which is never going to be a Switzerland, and see how long that lasts.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:01 am You need a good public transport system as the carrot to the ULEZ stick. I don't know what public transport is like in Greater London but in and around central London it has always appeared to me that the public transport system is good and safe when you consider how many millions of people are moving around every day.

A car is convenient and some people really do need to use one every day, but I'm not convinced you need one of the new Land Rover Defenders to take the kids to school in West Hampstead. Car clubs are becoming more common place and are used more around here, I don't use my car much now, if it fails the MOT (it's 20 years old) it's getting binned and I'll rely on public transport and hiring when needed.

This. Uxbridge has excellent public transport locally and into London. We just have to change the mindset of a car being a necessity and a right, but that has to go hand in hand with helping those that do need alternative transport, I would guess most people moaning about it don't.

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:03 am In my street there are a good dozen non-compliant diesel cars/vans, equating to about 15% of the total vehicles. Some I checked on AutoTrader and their resale price was 15k in several cases. To get an equivalent compliant replacement was going to cost them another 10k.

For some reason the pensioners have not even heard about it. A lot I see walking dogs had no idea they were impacted by it, they are scared by the cost.

A lot of those pensioners said they have to give up driving, Khan’s aim anyway, but hospital visits make this impossible for many with multiple buses needed and a journey time of well over an hour. Car journey takes 15mins.

There is massive potential for a Labour routing in the outer boroughs of London.

According TfL a taxi fare in London of up to 20 minutes costs £7- £17.

Even if you had to do the hospital visit every month at the maximum rate it would still be way less than the cost of keeping a car on the road tax, parking, insurance, depreciation, service & MOT, breakdown cover etc even before the pollution charge

Brazil wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:58 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:46 am

I like neeps wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:03 am

ULEZ isn't even Khan's policy choice. Shapps made expansion of ULEZ a requirement for increased tfls funding settlement last year.

I think you might need to fact check that one on ULEZ. Everything I have read suggests it was Khan’s decision.

https://www.onlondon.co.uk/letter-from- ... arge-zone/

They made it a condition of the TFL funding.

That aligns with what I have read in other places, Khan to suggests option around schemes to charge more to balance his budget. It does not place it as a condition.

Also Khan has solely placed this on air quality, if it was an explicit condition by Government that would be his first/second statement each time he talks about ULEZ, and as far as I can work out he has not raised it at all?

_Os_ wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:08 am

I like neeps wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:03 am ULEZ isn't even Khan's policy choice. Shapps made expansion of ULEZ a requirement for increased tfls funding settlement last year.

No a left leaning Labour mayor of London is responsible for losing it, on a green issue when the literal Greens came third.

Sounds like Khan is going to be purged from the Labour party for this.

The loss of course has nothing at all to do with the Labour leader appearing on stage with the most hated living person in British politics, Tony Blair, in the days before. A move guaranteed to get anyone motivated to kamikaze vote for the Greens specifically to harm Labour up and voting. Nothing to do with that, all Khan.

Tories: weaponised ULEZ and hailed it as the reason for the narrow win
Labour: claimed ULEZ was weaponised and acknowledged it was significant in the failure to overtake the Tories
Voters/residents on call-ins: pointing the finger at ULEZ
Os: it's because Starmer had a chat with Blair the other day


Labour: 43.6% - a +5.9% swing
Greens: 2.9% - a +0.6% swing
Os: Greens prevented Labour winning!!

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:22 am Tories: weaponised ULEZ and hailed it as the reason for the narrow win
Labour: claimed ULEZ was weaponised
Voters/residents on call-ins: pointing the finger at ULEZ
Os: it's because Starmer had a chat with Blair the other day


Labour: 43.6% - a +5.9% swing
Greens: 2.9% - a +0.6% swing
Os: Greens prevented Labour winning!!

I caught my fishy.

Compare the Lib Dem voter movement to the Greens (non) voter movement. Same in all three. A chat and laugh with Blair is not a good move if Labour wants to shift those Greens. Which they don't need to now, but lets wait and see once Labour have been in charge of the dumpster fire for awhile.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:03 am In my street there are a good dozen non-compliant diesel cars/vans, equating to about 15% of the total vehicles. Some I checked on AutoTrader and their resale price was 15k in several cases. To get an equivalent compliant replacement was going to cost them another 10k.

For some reason the pensioners have not even heard about it. A lot I see walking dogs had no idea they were impacted by it, they are scared by the cost.

A lot of those pensioners said they have to give up driving, Khan’s aim anyway, but hospital visits make this impossible for many with multiple buses needed and a journey time of well over an hour. Car journey takes 15mins.

There is massive potential for a Labour routing in the outer boroughs of London.

According TfL a taxi fare in London of up to 20 minutes costs £7- £17.

Even if you had to do the hospital visit every month at the maximum rate it would still be way less than the cost of keeping a car on the road tax, parking, insurance, depreciation, service & MOT, breakdown cover etc even before the pollution charge

Hospital visits was just one extreme example. Food shopping is another example provided, very soon it mounts up.

Public transport in some outer and more rural boroughs is very sporadic, it is not a simple replacement for the car that many think it can be.

I live in a borough where it is not too bad but every journey is more than doubled by using public transport.

Don’t underestimate how impactful ULEZ is outside of the N/S Circulars.

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:46 am

I like neeps wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:03 am

C69 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 7:02 am Labour will need to sort ULEZ out apparently.
However they still increased their vote vote in Uxbridge by 6%

Clearly the nod and a wink will mean Labour and Lim Dems will know exactly where to focus their campaigning at the next GE.
The Red Wall Tory MPs will be totally wiped out and it's going to be carnage.

I think the Tories arrogance is still astounding.

Rayner acknowledged that Khan's ULEZ expansion is a vote loser so let's see a bit more flip flopping

ULEZ isn't even Khan's policy choice. Shapps made expansion of ULEZ a requirement for increased tfls funding settlement last year.

I think you might need to fact check that one on ULEZ. Everything I have read suggests it was Khan’s decision.

Nope, very much Shapps in the May 2020 TfL funding agreement

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:03 am In my street there are a good dozen non-compliant diesel cars/vans, equating to about 15% of the total vehicles. Some I checked on AutoTrader and their resale price was 15k in several cases. To get an equivalent compliant replacement was going to cost them another 10k.

For some reason the pensioners have not even heard about it. A lot I see walking dogs had no idea they were impacted by it, they are scared by the cost.

A lot of those pensioners said they have to give up driving, Khan’s aim anyway, but hospital visits make this impossible for many with multiple buses needed and a journey time of well over an hour. Car journey takes 15mins.

There is massive potential for a Labour routing in the outer boroughs of London.

According TfL a taxi fare in London of up to 20 minutes costs £7- £17.

Even if you had to do the hospital visit every month at the maximum rate it would still be way less than the cost of keeping a car on the road tax, parking, insurance, depreciation, service & MOT, breakdown cover etc even before the pollution charge

It's not quite that simple

For full disclosure, my brother is undergoing chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden and drives over from west London.

Like many others, he can't take public transport due to the nature of treatment and he can't be at the mercy of taxi availability - or, indeed, the cost of a taxi, given the distance and time to get into Kensington.

Luckily his car is allowed in ULEZ.

I'd agree that people who live and work in much of greater London don't in general really need a car, but everyone's situation is different - and having to buy a new car when off work with a life threatening illness (so, from a practical perspective, forget car loans) would be far from ideal.

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:28 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:03 am In my street there are a good dozen non-compliant diesel cars/vans, equating to about 15% of the total vehicles. Some I checked on AutoTrader and their resale price was 15k in several cases. To get an equivalent compliant replacement was going to cost them another 10k.

For some reason the pensioners have not even heard about it. A lot I see walking dogs had no idea they were impacted by it, they are scared by the cost.

A lot of those pensioners said they have to give up driving, Khan’s aim anyway, but hospital visits make this impossible for many with multiple buses needed and a journey time of well over an hour. Car journey takes 15mins.

There is massive potential for a Labour routing in the outer boroughs of London.

According TfL a taxi fare in London of up to 20 minutes costs £7- £17.

Even if you had to do the hospital visit every month at the maximum rate it would still be way less than the cost of keeping a car on the road tax, parking, insurance, depreciation, service & MOT, breakdown cover etc even before the pollution charge

Hospital visits was just one extreme example. Food shopping is another example provided, very soon it mounts up.

Public transport in some outer and more rural boroughs is very sporadic, it is not a simple replacement for the car that many think it can be.

I live in a borough where it is not too bad but every journey is more than doubled by using public transport.

Don’t underestimate how impactful ULEZ is outside of the N/S Circulars.

You can get supermarket delivery slots for around a fiver - the cots of a car sitting unused, before you put petrol in it is around (I'm using Gov data and low estimates) £500 for insurance, MOT and service £300, Annual Parking Permit (Tower Hamlets was the first google) £115, RAC (low ball figure) £100, Fuel costs are dependent on use obviously, to some extent depreciation is too, but I'll ignore those for the time being.

It's around £90 per month before fuel and depreciation to have the car just sit there outside your house, low estimate.

Not sure I buy the public transport is good so you can use it instead argument.
Anyone with younger kids will know that a car is pretty much essential for all sorts of ferrying to clubs and activities which cannot be easily replaced by the bus until they get to an age where you can trust them to take buses by themselves.

Food shopping can perhaps be replaced by home delivery, but there are all sorts of trips where you need to carry stuff which really requires a car.

In addition the transport infrastructure works like spokes on a wheel radiating out from the centre. It is great of you want to go to inner london, but not so good for going in other directions. Going from West London where I live to South West London for instance is a bitch, although not far as the crow flies.

Then if you live inside the ULEZ then any journey at all requires paying the charge, even if you are heading out of London to visit elderly relatives or such. Total pain.

Ambiguous statement from a legal perspective, but why isn’t this his being stated by him?

Opportunity to blame the government is not missed by Khan in pretty much everything he says, so why is it absent on this topic?

Doesn’t make sense?

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:46 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:28 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 am


According TfL a taxi fare in London of up to 20 minutes costs £7- £17.

Even if you had to do the hospital visit every month at the maximum rate it would still be way less than the cost of keeping a car on the road tax, parking, insurance, depreciation, service & MOT, breakdown cover etc even before the pollution charge

Hospital visits was just one extreme example. Food shopping is another example provided, very soon it mounts up.

Public transport in some outer and more rural boroughs is very sporadic, it is not a simple replacement for the car that many think it can be.

I live in a borough where it is not too bad but every journey is more than doubled by using public transport.

Don’t underestimate how impactful ULEZ is outside of the N/S Circulars.

You can get supermarket delivery slots for around a fiver - the cots of a car sitting unused, before you put petrol in it is around (I'm using Gov data and low estimates) £500 for insurance, MOT and service £300, Annual Parking Permit (Tower Hamlets was the first google) £115, RAC (low ball figure) £100, Fuel costs are dependent on use obviously, to some extent depreciation is too, but I'll ignore those for the time being.

It's around £90 per month before fuel and depreciation to have the car just sit there outside your house, low estimate.

Probably worth bearing in minds those are sunk costs - ie.e. someone has weighed up their situation and circumstance and opted for a car, which means using the car instead of using other services.

I mention this as this whole balance is disrupted if they find they can no longer use the car as intended - at which point it's further worth considering they may have chosen where to live based upon the decision to drive (ie. many of the poor sods who can't afford to live anywhere on good transport links, which distort rents and house prices). It's not so easy to unpick.

inactionman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:45 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:03 am In my street there are a good dozen non-compliant diesel cars/vans, equating to about 15% of the total vehicles. Some I checked on AutoTrader and their resale price was 15k in several cases. To get an equivalent compliant replacement was going to cost them another 10k.

For some reason the pensioners have not even heard about it. A lot I see walking dogs had no idea they were impacted by it, they are scared by the cost.

A lot of those pensioners said they have to give up driving, Khan’s aim anyway, but hospital visits make this impossible for many with multiple buses needed and a journey time of well over an hour. Car journey takes 15mins.

There is massive potential for a Labour routing in the outer boroughs of London.

According TfL a taxi fare in London of up to 20 minutes costs £7- £17.

Even if you had to do the hospital visit every month at the maximum rate it would still be way less than the cost of keeping a car on the road tax, parking, insurance, depreciation, service & MOT, breakdown cover etc even before the pollution charge

It's not quite that simple

For full disclosure, my brother is undergoing chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden and drives over from west London.

Like many others, he can't take public transport due to the nature of treatment and he can't be at the mercy of taxi availability - or, indeed, the cost of a taxi, given the distance and time to get into Kensington.

Luckily his car is allowed in ULEZ.

I'd agree that people who live and work in much of greater London don't in general really need a car, but everyone's situation is different - and having to buy a new car when off work with a life threatening illness (so, from a practical perspective, forget car loans) would be far from ideal.

First, best wishes and good luck to your brother.

I don't think policy can be constructed on extreme situations, where there are extreme situations like that your brother is facing, help should be given - for instance we had a boy in our street who was provided with a taxi to his special needs school.

My mum has to rely on a patient transfer ambulance, but it takes and age and goes all around the county, then she has to wait until the end of the day to start the journey back. At times I've had to travel from Brighton to East Lothian to take her to hospital in Edinburgh when my brother or friends just couldn't do it.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:28 am

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:22 am Tories: weaponised ULEZ and hailed it as the reason for the narrow win
Labour: claimed ULEZ was weaponised
Voters/residents on call-ins: pointing the finger at ULEZ
Os: it's because Starmer had a chat with Blair the other day


Labour: 43.6% - a +5.9% swing
Greens: 2.9% - a +0.6% swing
Os: Greens prevented Labour winning!!

I caught my fishy.

Compare the Lib Dem voter movement to the Greens (non) voter movement. Same in all three. A chat and laugh with Blair is not a good move if Labour wants to shift those Greens. Which they don't need to now, but lets wait and see once Labour have been in charge of the dumpster fire for awhile.

The Greens are an irrelevance in Uxbridge. And don't make the mistake of assuming a Green vote would normally be a Labour vote - plenty of more moderate Tories see them as an acceptable single issue protest vote without having to vote for the enemy. Obviously the loons go for Reclaim, who were 2.3% compared to 2.6% for the greens, to show how irrelevant both of them were in this battle.

But honestly though, you're barking if you think Starmer talking to Blair has had any cut through at all. It's not news, only the terminally online and tragically political types are even aware it happened, and those who would be so enraged by it are already actively anti Labour on the left and the right.

inactionman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:51 am
Probably worth bearing in minds those are sunk costs - ie.e. someone has weighed up their situation and circumstance and opted for a car, which means using the car instead of using other services.

I mention this as this whole balance is disrupted if they find they can no longer use the car as intended - at which point it's further worth considering they may have chosen where to live based upon the decision to drive (ie. many of the poor sods who can't afford to live anywhere on good transport links, which distort rents and house prices). It's not so easy to unpick.

It's not easy to unpick, but you have to start at your end goal and work backwards from there.

The end goal here is to keep or planet from being uninhabitable, that is not being over dramatic.

We have to lower carbon emissions and we don't have the time we thought we had to do so.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:46 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:28 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:16 am


According TfL a taxi fare in London of up to 20 minutes costs £7- £17.

Even if you had to do the hospital visit every month at the maximum rate it would still be way less than the cost of keeping a car on the road tax, parking, insurance, depreciation, service & MOT, breakdown cover etc even before the pollution charge

Hospital visits was just one extreme example. Food shopping is another example provided, very soon it mounts up.

Public transport in some outer and more rural boroughs is very sporadic, it is not a simple replacement for the car that many think it can be.

I live in a borough where it is not too bad but every journey is more than doubled by using public transport.

Don’t underestimate how impactful ULEZ is outside of the N/S Circulars.

You can get supermarket delivery slots for around a fiver - the cots of a car sitting unused, before you put petrol in it is around (I'm using Gov data and low estimates) £500 for insurance, MOT and service £300, Annual Parking Permit (Tower Hamlets was the first google) £115, RAC (low ball figure) £100, Fuel costs are dependent on use obviously, to some extent depreciation is too, but I'll ignore those for the time being.

It's around £90 per month before fuel and depreciation to have the car just sit there outside your house, low estimate.

The car is ingrained in society. Removing it is hard at any time in life but doing it when you have age/mobility needs makes the decision more than just a cost discussion.

Plus those figures don’t add up for a small car fully owned, parked on the driveway that has been looked after, which is what many elderly people have. Not talking about Tower Hamlets, try Bromley or Sutton, outer boroughs which are quite rural.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:11 am

Yeeb wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:35 am I have no idea where you are wandering around with this but I think you need to read up on domicile , deemed & trusts a bit, as it seems you are giving UK’s power a bit too much credit re influence. A tax loophole and differential is a tax loophole and differential so unclear why somehow federal ones don’t count for you or why according to you it’s only a Uk thing.
Companies / funds / shells can and do move nominal country for tax advantages all the time , it was literally what I did in a couple of my roles in the past. Have a read about German cum-ex scandal which I’ve mentioned to bimbo & TSG on PR a couple of times , that had zero to do with Uk bar the fact that the people making the decisions were in London (although technically they were not ) and their lackeys (of which I was one ) were technically in London.

I need to read up on domicile? Are you sure?

It's obvious where I'm going. You're saying the rich cannot be taxed because they'll move their money elsewhere. I'm saying multiple offshore jurisdictions are ultimately within the power of the UK parliament to control/end. For the difference between US states and the UK system, just compare say the Cayman Island's tax regime to any US state, the other difference is Americans are aware Texas exists and is American, not really the same for the British and the BOTs. There aren't actually many places for the money to move to where it's going to be secure and hidden (it's certainly not moving to Liberia ffs), that means avoiding the US and EU system entirely and avoiding the places it came from (Russia/China/ME/etc). And if it does move, who cares, what stays will actually start paying HMRC. Or the UK can persist with two systems under one roof whilst running a structural deficit and a growing national debt, in a country of 70 millions which is never going to be a Switzerland, and see how long that lasts.

Seems you just want to blame the Uk, aka the Roketz approach . I am far from saying you cannot tax rich, but if you do try to increase it (too much) then the rich are extremely adept at moving it elsewhere , as my corporate commercial stamp duty example I wrote about earlier proved.
Glad that you admit who cares if the money moves elsewhere , and proves you seem to miss the point entirely re Fairness V actual revenue. You seem to genuinely want £1billion revenue generated from a nice fair system of companies that remain in the (however loosely) Uk controlled areas, than £2billion revenue generated under the current system. (Made up numbers not an actual ratio)
What has population size got to do with Switzerland or their tax laws and financial disclosure ? Offshore places offer services that are miles larger than what they could support domestically, and their tax neutrality means it’s the investors tax domicile that is key , not whether there is a Union Jack on its flag. Irish Qaifs are another example.

I’m not that hot on Uk parliamentary law , but I’m not sure it can easily alter any financial rules that offshore Caymen etc places set, because they are self governing.

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:02 am

The car is ingrained in society. Removing it is hard at any time in life but doing it when you have age/mobility needs makes the decision more than just a cost discussion.

Plus those figures don’t add up for a small car fully owned, parked on the driveway that has been looked after, which is what many elderly people have. Not talking about Tower Hamlets, try Bromley or Sutton, outer boroughs which are quite rural.

They re not far off, the insurance cost was for the 65 year old age group, service and MOT were low estimates (I pay around £400, last time was £500). You may not pay for an annual parking permit but you pay for parking most places you drive to.
I didn't include depreciation or fuel in my sums, so the mpg and being fully owned isn't really relevant.


I agree that the car is ingrained in society, that is what has to change.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:57 am

inactionman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:51 am
Probably worth bearing in minds those are sunk costs - ie.e. someone has weighed up their situation and circumstance and opted for a car, which means using the car instead of using other services.

I mention this as this whole balance is disrupted if they find they can no longer use the car as intended - at which point it's further worth considering they may have chosen where to live based upon the decision to drive (ie. many of the poor sods who can't afford to live anywhere on good transport links, which distort rents and house prices). It's not so easy to unpick.

It's not easy to unpick, but you have to start at your end goal and work backwards from there.

The end goal here is to keep or planet from being uninhabitable, that is not being over dramatic.

We have to lower carbon emissions and we don't have the time we thought we had to do so.

You are measuring decisions against your own expectations. The end goal for many pensioners is to see out their remaining years without massive restrictions. Plus, these people grew up in London when air quality was horrific and they see the air quality today as absolutely fine.

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:08 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:57 am

inactionman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:51 am
Probably worth bearing in minds those are sunk costs - ie.e. someone has weighed up their situation and circumstance and opted for a car, which means using the car instead of using other services.

I mention this as this whole balance is disrupted if they find they can no longer use the car as intended - at which point it's further worth considering they may have chosen where to live based upon the decision to drive (ie. many of the poor sods who can't afford to live anywhere on good transport links, which distort rents and house prices). It's not so easy to unpick.

It's not easy to unpick, but you have to start at your end goal and work backwards from there.

The end goal here is to keep or planet from being uninhabitable, that is not being over dramatic.

We have to lower carbon emissions and we don't have the time we thought we had to do so.

You are measuring decisions against your own expectations. The end goal for many pensioners is to see out their remaining years without massive restrictions. Plus, these people grew up in London when air quality was horrific and they see the air quality today as absolutely fine.

I expect many of those pensioners will have grandchildren or great grandchildren

The discussion about migration on another thread will seem minuscule when climate change migration starts to happen.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:08 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:02 am

The car is ingrained in society. Removing it is hard at any time in life but doing it when you have age/mobility needs makes the decision more than just a cost discussion.

Plus those figures don’t add up for a small car fully owned, parked on the driveway that has been looked after, which is what many elderly people have. Not talking about Tower Hamlets, try Bromley or Sutton, outer boroughs which are quite rural.

They re not far off, the insurance cost was for the 65 year old age group, service and MOT were low estimates (I pay around £400, last time was £500). You may not pay for an annual parking permit but you pay for parking most places you drive to.
I didn't include depreciation or fuel in my sums, so the mpg and being fully owned isn't really relevant.


I agree that the car is ingrained in society, that is what has to change.

London’s car and motorcycle scrappage scheme provides the following grants:

Motorcycles: £200 - £1,000
Cars: £1,200 - £2,000
Wheelchair-accessible vehicles: £5,000

Not exactly going to get you anywhere near a new car at today's prices!

Sandstorm wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:18 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:08 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:02 am

The car is ingrained in society. Removing it is hard at any time in life but doing it when you have age/mobility needs makes the decision more than just a cost discussion.

Plus those figures don’t add up for a small car fully owned, parked on the driveway that has been looked after, which is what many elderly people have. Not talking about Tower Hamlets, try Bromley or Sutton, outer boroughs which are quite rural.

They re not far off, the insurance cost was for the 65 year old age group, service and MOT were low estimates (I pay around £400, last time was £500). You may not pay for an annual parking permit but you pay for parking most places you drive to.
I didn't include depreciation or fuel in my sums, so the mpg and being fully owned isn't really relevant.


I agree that the car is ingrained in society, that is what has to change.

London’s car and motorcycle scrappage scheme provides the following grants:

Motorcycles: £200 - £1,000
Cars: £1,200 - £2,000
Wheelchair-accessible vehicles: £5,000

Not exactly going to get you anywhere near a new car at today's prices!

Yeah, as far as I'm aware the post-pandemic scarcity of chips (silicon, not salt and vinegar) pushed waiting times and prices up for new cars, and that in turn pushed up prices on second hand cars.


If it can be done, the savings made by not buying a new (or new to you) car will go a long way on public transport.

This is not easy, it's really not convenient, but the consequences of not taking action are much worse in terms of ease and convenience.

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:22 am Labour: 43.6% - a +5.9% swing
Greens: 2.9% - a +0.6% swing
Os: Greens prevented Labour winning!!

failure of the tactical vote,

they won by 495 votes,

~1400 votes went to LD (526) and Greenies (893) , way more than uber-cunts UKIP, Reclaim stole from the cunts.

inactionman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:45 am

S/Lt_Phillips wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:28 am

SaintK wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:12 am
And it was Johnson who originally introduced it.

It's not even that stringent. My 2004 petrol* car passes the standard (same with the Glasgow zone). 2004.

I suspect there's lots of wailing and moaning and reading the Daily Mail without actually checking the facts, as usual.

*Diesels will be more impacted, granted, though I checked my previous car, a 2016 focus, and that was fine too. So how many people will actually be affected?

Older diesels mainly, which will presumably piss many taxi drivers off.

A 2016 diesel will be EURO 6 which is currently the most stringent of the standards, I think it came intro effect in 2014 but that is only for cars retailed from that point on - it's of course not retrospective. Most ULEZ require Euro 6. There was a significant jump (or required drop) for NOx between EURO 5 and EURO 6, from 0.18 g/KM to 0.08. (eta - just to make clear, most EURO 5 engines are not going to be OK for ULEZ just purely on target limits, although I'm not clear if EURO 6 is actually a requirement for ULEZ or just the specific car's emissions levels)

Diesels are horrifically more polluting than any modern petrol car (by that I mean anything petrol with a catalytic converter and lambda sensor, so it's barely producing any CO or NOx). By their very nature Diesels are very, very hard to get clean - there's all sorts of workarounds such as ammonia additives (adblue - and really needed to get NOX down to EURO 6 requirements), exhaust gas recirculation (Which helps with NOX but is complex), particulate traps etc, which are there to try to address the worst excesses and which older engines won't have.

Many of these problems were caused by the relentless drive to drop CO2 emissions, which diesels can help with - at the expense of just about every other horrible pollutant. Prior to the VW emissions scandal, where people started to look more closely, no-one really seemed to care. I worked at a University which had huge research funding from Ford for diesel research (amongst other things) and many of us not involved in that research area could really work out why there wasn't more pushback on diesel given it's so intrinsically polluting.

I totally understand that we need to target old diesels, I'm just not convinced there's that many people in that constituency driving a 9 year old plus diesel (anything newer than that should be exempt). I see Shaggy's estimate is 15% in his street, but it's definitely not that many in mine.

(Also, taxi drivers don't count as they are almost certainly exempt - the black cab industry has huge lobbying power.)

Yeeb wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:06 am

_Os_ wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:11 am

Yeeb wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 8:35 am I have no idea where you are wandering around with this but I think you need to read up on domicile , deemed & trusts a bit, as it seems you are giving UK’s power a bit too much credit re influence. A tax loophole and differential is a tax loophole and differential so unclear why somehow federal ones don’t count for you or why according to you it’s only a Uk thing.
Companies / funds / shells can and do move nominal country for tax advantages all the time , it was literally what I did in a couple of my roles in the past. Have a read about German cum-ex scandal which I’ve mentioned to bimbo & TSG on PR a couple of times , that had zero to do with Uk bar the fact that the people making the decisions were in London (although technically they were not ) and their lackeys (of which I was one ) were technically in London.

I need to read up on domicile? Are you sure?

It's obvious where I'm going. You're saying the rich cannot be taxed because they'll move their money elsewhere. I'm saying multiple offshore jurisdictions are ultimately within the power of the UK parliament to control/end. For the difference between US states and the UK system, just compare say the Cayman Island's tax regime to any US state, the other difference is Americans are aware Texas exists and is American, not really the same for the British and the BOTs. There aren't actually many places for the money to move to where it's going to be secure and hidden (it's certainly not moving to Liberia ffs), that means avoiding the US and EU system entirely and avoiding the places it came from (Russia/China/ME/etc). And if it does move, who cares, what stays will actually start paying HMRC. Or the UK can persist with two systems under one roof whilst running a structural deficit and a growing national debt, in a country of 70 millions which is never going to be a Switzerland, and see how long that lasts.

Seems you just want to blame the Uk, aka the Roketz approach . I am far from saying you cannot tax rich, but if you do try to increase it (too much) then the rich are extremely adept at moving it elsewhere , as my corporate commercial stamp duty example I wrote about earlier proved.
Glad that you admit who cares if the money moves elsewhere , and proves you seem to miss the point entirely re Fairness V actual revenue. You seem to genuinely want £1billion revenue generated from a nice fair system of companies that remain in the (however loosely) Uk controlled areas, than £2billion revenue generated under the current system. (Made up numbers not an actual ratio)
What has population size got to do with Switzerland or their tax laws and financial disclosure ? Offshore places offer services that are miles larger than what they could support domestically, and their tax neutrality means it’s the investors tax domicile that is key , not whether there is a Union Jack on its flag. Irish Qaifs are another example.

I’m not that hot on Uk parliamentary law , but I’m not sure it can easily alter any financial rules that offshore Caymen etc places set, because they are self governing.

How am I blaming the UK? I'm saying this isn't something the UK has no control over and it isn't being swept along by currents it cannot influence or control in any form.

Lets go back to your stamp duty example. As I already mentioned most of the UK property owned through offshore vehicles, in fact exist within the UK: Jersey/Isle of Man/Guernsey/British Virgin Islands. As he's already being mentioned, Tony Blair has bought commercial property in London (for his thinktank presumably) through a BVI offshore vehicle for tax optimisation.

You're all fine with that, and think it cannot and shouldn't change because the tax take would go down in your opinion.

I'm saying a lot of these territories are within the UK, they can be abolished by the UK, or the two speed system can be made considerably less extreme in the difference between them. For fixed assets like property it's a governmental choice to allow opaque ownership in UK territories, and unlimited ownership of UK property by foreign individuals and offshore companies (which are usual not foreign but UK). There is nothing which says UK laws must always mean property transaction tax doesn't always have to be paid in full. It's a choice to make it this way. It's made this way so "the property market isn't damaged", which actually means property prices would fall and become more affordable for ordinary people (tax is a method of reducing price inflation).

Of course fairness in a tax system matters. Especially when offshore options are more accessible than many realise. If it becomes understood that the tax system is manifestly unfair and the taxes are being wasted, then you get a Greece and getting anyone to pay becomes impossible. Do you think it would be desirable if every property in the UK was bought through an opaque offshore vehicle as an off the self option when buying a house? That's the logical endpoint when PMs are doing it and PMs are saying the point of the UK is to pay as little tax as possible. The size of a population matters too, it's quite easy to please a tiny population where's there's barely any politics happening. Bit more difficult convincing 70 million people an unfair tax system is cool, when taxes are going up for ordinary people and that still means a deficit and growing debt.

The Cayman Islands isn't a country, it's self governing the same way Wales and Scotland are, ie the UK parliament is supreme and can take it all away. It is part of the UK.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:12 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:08 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:57 am


It's not easy to unpick, but you have to start at your end goal and work backwards from there.

The end goal here is to keep or planet from being uninhabitable, that is not being over dramatic.

We have to lower carbon emissions and we don't have the time we thought we had to do so.

You are measuring decisions against your own expectations. The end goal for many pensioners is to see out their remaining years without massive restrictions. Plus, these people grew up in London when air quality was horrific and they see the air quality today as absolutely fine.

I expect many of those pensioners will have grandchildren or great grandchildren

The discussion about migration on another thread will seem minuscule when climate change migration starts to happen.

ULEZ is an air quality issue according to Khan. Climate change, although one of his areas of policy interest , is not part of the decision so it is irrelevant in the discussion of whether London ULEZ expansion is a potential challenge for Labour votes in London.

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:48 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:12 am

shaggy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:08 am

You are measuring decisions against your own expectations. The end goal for many pensioners is to see out their remaining years without massive restrictions. Plus, these people grew up in London when air quality was horrific and they see the air quality today as absolutely fine.

I expect many of those pensioners will have grandchildren or great grandchildren

The discussion about migration on another thread will seem minuscule when climate change migration starts to happen.

ULEZ is an air quality issue according to Khan. Climate change, although one of his areas of policy interest , is not part of the decision so it is irrelevant in the discussion of whether London ULEZ expansion is a potential challenge for Labour votes in London.

Khan is a politician, he'll frame it in whichever way he feels is most likely to get the point across. It may well be that in his view the most immediate problem facing Londoners is air quality, it may be that he feels people don't respond to climate change issues as it seems too far down the road, but if you reduce NO2 and CO emissions by taking cars off the road or putting "cleaner" cars on the road, then you also reduce CO2 emissions.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:29 am
Yeah, as far as I'm aware the post-pandemic scarcity of chips (silicon, not salt and vinegar) pushed waiting times and prices up for new cars, and that in turn pushed up prices on second hand cars.

That's a small part of it.
The main driver of high car prices is PCP Car Finance. Instead of buyers (especially younger people) looking at the list price £25k, they only focus on the monthly payment eg. £292.

Buyer: "Hey, I can afford that!"
Dealer: "You know, for just an extra £17 a month you can get the deluxe model with alloys and a huge touch screen"
Buyer: "Another £17? That's peanuts. I'll do it"

The manufacturers know this and keep edging up the list price every month or so. Buyers barely notice.
Then the new model comes in and that jumps by £1.5k. And so it goes....

Another is safety features like automatic lane keeping. It's EU Law and expensive to implement in every car you make, especially the small ones.

Sandstorm wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 11:11 am

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:29 am
Yeah, as far as I'm aware the post-pandemic scarcity of chips (silicon, not salt and vinegar) pushed waiting times and prices up for new cars, and that in turn pushed up prices on second hand cars.

That's a small part of it.
The main driver of high car prices is PCP Car Finance. Instead of buyers (especially younger people) looking at the list price £25k, they only focus on the monthly payment eg. £292.

Buyer: "Hey, I can afford that!"
Dealer: "You know, for just an extra £17 a month you can get the deluxe model with alloys and a huge touch screen"
Buyer: "Another £17? That's peanuts. I'll do it"

The manufacturers know this and keep edging up the list price every month or so. Buyers barely notice.
Then the new model comes in and that jumps by £1.5k. And so it goes....

Another is safety features like automatic lane keeping. It's EU Law and expensive to implement in every car you make, especially the small ones.

When I used to drive a 109 Series 3 Land Rover from the Pyrenees to Edinburgh the automatic lane keeping relied purely on Pro Plus and Coffee.

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 11:16 am
When I used to drive a 109 Series 3 Land Rover from the Pyrenees to Edinburgh

Christ you must have been a sucker for punishment!

_Os_ wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:40 am

Yeeb wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:06 am

_Os_ wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:11 am
I need to read up on domicile? Are you sure?

It's obvious where I'm going. You're saying the rich cannot be taxed because they'll move their money elsewhere. I'm saying multiple offshore jurisdictions are ultimately within the power of the UK parliament to control/end. For the difference between US states and the UK system, just compare say the Cayman Island's tax regime to any US state, the other difference is Americans are aware Texas exists and is American, not really the same for the British and the BOTs. There aren't actually many places for the money to move to where it's going to be secure and hidden (it's certainly not moving to Liberia ffs), that means avoiding the US and EU system entirely and avoiding the places it came from (Russia/China/ME/etc). And if it does move, who cares, what stays will actually start paying HMRC. Or the UK can persist with two systems under one roof whilst running a structural deficit and a growing national debt, in a country of 70 millions which is never going to be a Switzerland, and see how long that lasts.

Seems you just want to blame the Uk, aka the Roketz approach . I am far from saying you cannot tax rich, but if you do try to increase it (too much) then the rich are extremely adept at moving it elsewhere , as my corporate commercial stamp duty example I wrote about earlier proved.
Glad that you admit who cares if the money moves elsewhere , and proves you seem to miss the point entirely re Fairness V actual revenue. You seem to genuinely want £1billion revenue generated from a nice fair system of companies that remain in the (however loosely) Uk controlled areas, than £2billion revenue generated under the current system. (Made up numbers not an actual ratio)
What has population size got to do with Switzerland or their tax laws and financial disclosure ? Offshore places offer services that are miles larger than what they could support domestically, and their tax neutrality means it’s the investors tax domicile that is key , not whether there is a Union Jack on its flag. Irish Qaifs are another example.

I’m not that hot on Uk parliamentary law , but I’m not sure it can easily alter any financial rules that offshore Caymen etc places set, because they are self governing.

How am I blaming the UK? I'm saying this isn't something the UK has no control over and it isn't being swept along by currents it cannot influence or control in any form.

Lets go back to your stamp duty example. As I already mentioned most of the UK property owned through offshore vehicles, in fact exist within the UK: Jersey/Isle of Man/Guernsey/British Virgin Islands. As he's already being mentioned, Tony Blair has bought commercial property in London (for his thinktank presumably) through a BVI offshore vehicle for tax optimisation.

You're all fine with that, and think it cannot and shouldn't change because the tax take would go down in your opinion.

I'm saying a lot of these territories are within the UK, they can be abolished by the UK, or the two speed system can be made considerably less extreme in the difference between them. For fixed assets like property it's a governmental choice to allow opaque ownership in UK territories, and unlimited ownership of UK property by foreign individuals and offshore companies (which are usual not foreign but UK). There is nothing which says UK laws must always mean property transaction tax doesn't always have to be paid in full. It's a choice to make it this way. It's made this way so "the property market isn't damaged", which actually means property prices would fall and become more affordable for ordinary people (tax is a method of reducing price inflation).

Of course fairness in a tax system matters. Especially when offshore options are more accessible than many realise. If it becomes understood that the tax system is manifestly unfair and the taxes are being wasted, then you get a Greece and getting anyone to pay becomes impossible. Do you think it would be desirable if every property in the UK was bought through an opaque offshore vehicle as an off the self option when buying a house? That's the logical endpoint when PMs are doing it and PMs are saying the point of the UK is to pay as little tax as possible. The size of a population matters too, it's quite easy to please a tiny population where's there's barely any politics happening. Bit more difficult convincing 70 million people an unfair tax system is cool, when taxes are going up for ordinary people and that still means a deficit and growing debt.

The Cayman Islands isn't a country, it's self governing the same way Wales and Scotland are, ie the UK parliament is supreme and can take it all away. It is part of the UK.

It’s almost as if English is not your first language - go and re read where I have the example about how raising tax on commercial stamp pushed it offshore and raised much less revenue , all in the name of fairness. When it was 0.5% it wasn’t worth offshoring everything because of the extra cost of having a nominal office in timbuktu, and the funds I worked on were indeed Uk domiciled and paid Uk taxes.

To be clear, I like the government buying and paying for stuff. I want to govt to have more money to pay for stuff. Sometimes that means raising taxes, and sometimes lowering or abolishing them.

As for caymen, as I said earlier it’s the tax dom of its investors that matters, because it’s tax neutral status. You seem to want to end that tax neutral status, and be ok with all the business that would simply flow to another tax neutral market? Go and look at how Greece (for example) tends to buy and sell hotels and pay tax, it’s far from a Uk control thing only like you make out.

Like jmk I’m a bit tired now of rehashing the same words over and over if you deliberately misinterpret them so I will now bid adios to this discussion with you as you are clearly right about everything apparently