I can’t influence or change anything so I’m not going to loose sleep over it as it will happen anyway, life is too short to let worrying over what happens in the UK make it shorter still.
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Obviously lots of charity work is undertaken, especially by local churches - but some pretty heinous stuff has been done in the name of religion through the years. Edit - or by organisations allied to one church or another.
Do I have to report that we have benefitted from private schools charitable status due to the fact that our daughter won a full fees sixth form scholarship to Downe House.
Part of the reason was that Jim had no work and we were worried that we would have to sell our house and interrupt her education.
Our daughter benefitted greatly from her experience and has gone on to have an excellent career.
I had to be interviewed as well!
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a useful examination by a tax expert on this fiasco from Owen Jones
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My use of the Diane Abbott example was in this argument:
Generally speaking the fact is this:
Whatever your political views, you have to live in the real world - the world as it is. This applies to everybody. If you’re confused by the idea of a wealthy socialist, you ought to be equally confused by a low-tax-small-state conservative using the public roads.Some conservatives are so stupid they think that if a socialist advocates better public transport they ought to use it all the time - even if there is no bus going their way. They think Diane Abbott is hypocritical for sending her child to a private school - but that’s absurd. There is nothing inconsistent in advocating something that will improve life for everybody, such as integrating private schools with the state system as part of a programme for improving the state system, but also, given the available choices where you live now, deciding that the best school for the particular needs of your child is a private one.
You live in the world as it is - you have no choice - even while advocating a better one.
At no pint have you actually addressed any of the points made. As in the Monty Python sketch - just trying to gainsay whatever comes from a different perspective is not discussion - it’s just trying to shout others down.
You may be among those that do believe you don’t have to live in the real world - you may have founded a utopian community deep in some wilderness for all I know, or in the process of becoming an ascetic hermit. Such people might, perhaps, insist their children walk everywhere because cars are bad, or force them to go to a cult school that is entirely unsuited to their educational needs because they think its better for their souls. They might believe free markets are better than state ownership, and so refuse to let their kids ever set foot on a public road.
Your position, as I understand it, is that such people are right to do so, because they are then being consistent. You are (if you have genuinely thought your position through) an idealist - you want everybody to behave as if the world really is, now, as they would like it to be.
I’m a realist - I think they should simply do what’s best for their kids, in the real world, now.
I’ve been thinking more about the Miliband ‘mansion’ example too. It’s instructive, I think.
You know when I did my little bit of research, my search pages were flooded with dozens, probably hundreds of stories in the right-wing press.
Eventually, it turns into a ‘factoid’ - a myth that gets repeated endlessly as if its true, as in this thread.
So a man, Ralph Miliband, who seems in reality to have been a decent, in many ways admirable human being, gets branded as a greedy hypocrite.
A very clear demonstration of how people not only fall for propaganda, but propagate it themselves - and others then innocently form their own views on the basis of what they think are the facts - but which were never true in the first place.
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Oh, I do! That is why on the thread about ‘What is Art’ I have said 3 times, with increasingly hysterical adjectives, what I think about Jeff Koon’s gigantic balloon dogs and the ridiculous price, as opposed to value.
I agree with you.
Besides, I am too worried about and time occupied by the genuine tragedy occurring in Ukraine.
I think Richard Murphy talks a lot of sense - his blog is worth a read.
I also think his comments here are on the nail, but anyone not already familiar with his work should note that he is generally very critical of current government economic policies so might not be considered a completely unbiased observer.
Drifting to “complex tax matters” generally - at least we don’t have to deal with a “single” country which doesn’t even always manage to avoid double taxing its citizens if they happen to live in one part and work in another.
I see the evidence against Zahawi is strengthening. It’s admitted he was fined now, a million no less. Are you still defending the indefensible, excusing low standards and behaviour in high office 
The pundits predict that he’ll be gone from the Cabinet and as Tory Chair by Wednesday.
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Frank Zappa.
"You are Colly Kibber, and I claim the Daily Messenger prize”
Sunak’s in a hole on this one - he can either keep him on, which will widely be seen as a sign of weakness, or sack him in an outward show of strength - but which will *also* be seen as a sign of weakness but could be microscopically less damaging to his premiership in the medium term.
Out of the two though, I think he might go with sacking Zahawi.
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Poor old James (not so) Cleverly - once again sent out to do the media rounds defending the indefensible 
Wasn’t so long ago the poor hapless pratt was defending Kwasimodo’s mini budget telling the media pundits that he’d still be in post next year and through to the election whilst at the time as he was speaking, Truss’ fingers were busily tweeting his dismissal as chancellor whilst he was still in the States 
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Agree, support from Cleverly is usually the death knell for a politician.
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Cleverly has difficulty in supporting his own jowls 
He was an idiot when he was de Pfeffle’s Policing lead at County Hall and he hasn’t changed a bit.
If you bothered to read what I’ve said you’ll see that I don’t give a fig what happens to him, should he have committed any sort of offence (be that criminal or breaking the ministerial code) he should be punished.
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I see Sunak has now asked the ‘independent’ Eton old boy, 3rd Baronet of Tangley Hill, investment banker in the City of London for 40 years, Sir Laurence Henry Philip Magnus, to investigate Zahawi’s affairs.
Good to have somebody with genuine detachment from the UK Establishment looking into it, eh?
I think this looks worse than not investigating his affairs.
He kept Sue Ellen on despite her misdemeanours