Interesting Books a second thought

You might gather from my Interesting Books list, that I only read serious stuff. Not at all! I read a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy as well. Really, really I am not that dull (methinks you doth protest to much - ed). 

However, I have to say that I am being slightly disengenous here as I do read quite a few books, reference and otherwise related to the business that I am in ( you're in business, really? - ed), that is Software Development (amongst many other things - ed).

Now, books on Software Development are interesting (its that word gain. Surely that is only in your opinion - ed), no honestly - I am not talking about reference books that detail the nuances and syntax of various languages, frameworks or tools, I agree that they can be as dull as dishwater - but they still are catalysts for me, in that I can still end up shouting at the book,

"Give me a decent example!",

or

"You're missing all the difficult bits, the error handling, the logging, the configuration, the maintenance, the deployment",

You may note that I can get a little involved with what I am reading (is that due to the common sense that you carp on about having loads of? - ed) and sitting near me on a train when I am reading an interesting book can be a little disconcerting.

There may be an occasional expostulation (well done for getting that word in - literary ed) as from time to time I do talk to the author (well actually David you are talking to the book, as the author is not usually (ever), sitting beside you) to argue with something that has been written.

Anyhow, the more interesting software development books are the ones about the process of developing code (aka building software - ed), or building good teams or ensuring teams are in the right kind of environment to be productive.

Here is a short list of the ones that I love and have read and re-read (really? - ed):

• Peopleware - Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
• Clean Code by Robert C Martin aka Uncle Bob
• The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
• Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler et al
• Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck
• Practices for Scaling Lean and Agile Develpment by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde
• AntiPatterns by William J Brown, Raphael C. Malveau, Hays W. "Skip" McCormick III and Thomas J. Mowbray

I might be forced to explain why these are so, so good, but not today, 'bout time I posted this.

Interesting Book List - Naturally IMHO

This is not by any accounts a complete list of books I would recommend, but it will do for starters!

Explanations (comprehensible) of The Recent Financial Crash

• Big Short - Michael Lewis
• Whoops (Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay) - John :Lanchester

Just Plain Interesting and difficult to categorise

• Watching The English - Kate Fox
• Risk - Dan Gardner
• Flat Earth News - Nick Davies
• Bounce - Matthew Syed
• The Memory Bank - Keith Hart
• The Chimp Paradox - Dr Steve Peters
• Why Most Things Fail - Paul Ormerod
• 59 Seconds, Think a Little, Change a Lot - Richard Wiseman

Humourous History

• 1000 Years of Annoying The French - Stephen Clarke
• An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain - John O’Farrell
• An Utterly Impartial History of Britain - John O’Farrell

Serious History

• The Rise & Fall of the Great Powers - Paul Kennedy
• Why The West Rules For Now - The Patterns of history and what they reveal about the future - Ian Morris
• Why Nations Fail - Daron Acemoglu & James A Robinson
• World Civilizations - Burns, Ralph, Lerner, Meacham
• Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
• The Wealth and Poverty of Nations - David Landes
• D-Day - Anthony Bevoir
• The Myth of Decline - The Rise of Britain Since 1945 - George L Bernstein

Economics and Predictions Thereof

• Solutions For The World’s Biggest Problems - Bjorn Lomborg
• The Skeptical Environmentalist - Bjorn Lomborg
• Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The World in 2020 - Hamish McRae
• Just Capital - Adair Turner
• Inevitable Surprise - Peter Schwarz
• The Rational Optimist - Matt Ridley
• 20:21 Vision: The Lessons of the 20th Century for the 21st - Bill Emmott

Comment on Current Affairs in Britiain

• Scared To Death - Christopher Booker & Richard North
• The Real Global Warming Disaster - Christopher Booker
• All Must Have Prizes - Melanie Philips
• The Welfare State We’re In - James Bartholomew
• The Rise Of Political Lying - Peter Oborne
• Bring Home the Revolution: The Case for a British Republic - Jonathan Freedland

Holy Elephant Garlic Batman

Seems that garlic harvesting is going well this year.

This was the first of the elephant garlics to be harvested, we were a little gobsmacked at the size of it!

Followed the instructions to cut off the garlic flower heads when they appeared to force the growth of the bulbs.

Seemed to have worked a treat.

Hi 8 us

There has been a rather large hiatus (not some kind of colourful flower, but a pause - literary ed) since my last post. You may be wondering why that is or you maybe quite happy that there has been a gap in the twaddle factor emanating from hereabouts.

Anyhow, this is simply a short post to let you all know that I am still alive (and well? - medical ed) and will be doing the odd blog or so over the coming days and weeks.

I will try and pick up where I left off, in that I appear to have quite a few posts in the pipeline. But we will have to see where the blogging  muse takes me (terpsichore, dancing with words perhaps  - literary ed).

Freelance IT Contractor - A Potted History

The phrase MGB stands for Money Grabbing B*******, (do you mean bastards - literary ed). I am not sure when this phrase came to be associated with Freelancer Contractors, but my gut feel (is it apple crumble time - food ed) is that it was probably in the early to mid '80s. It was a time when men were men (apart from those preparing for the sex change op - medical ed) and boys were boys (well until they reached 16 and could be packed off into the army and be shot at by all and sundry in far flung climes - but mostly in near flung Northern Ireland - political history ed).

Early days

There was a problem rearing its ugly head at recruitment agencies. The agencies were being chased by, what were then called the Inland Revenue and now the HMRC, for unpaid tax.

Slight aside, we used to have the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise. These two behemoth organisations have since amalgamated, slimmed down and become even less competent than they were, if that is possible, and as with the best type of government departments renamed themselves (to protect the innocent, or to hide their failings,  I wonder - cynical ed).

They are now known as HM Revenue and Customs or HMRC (HM for those of a foreign disposition means Her Majesty, that is until the Queen dies and the next monarch takes over, who will in all likelihood be a man and then HM will mean His Majesty - court correspondent ed). 

What is more interesting is that HM C&E had very substantial search and entry,  and confiscation powers which the Inland Revenue did not have. When they were merged what do you think happened to those powers, restricted to just the Customs & Excise areas of HMRC perhaps?

But that is a little off the point, but given my stream of unconsciousness style of writing, I am not tremendously surprised. The point is, that the agencies were getting done time and again for unpaid income tax and NI (National Insurance, that is income tax by another name, where not only the worker, but the company has to pay it to. BTW it does not go into a specific pot for health and pensions, no matter what the government might suggest - economics ed) and PAYE (Pay As You Earn, that is income tax - economics ed) contributions.

How could this be occurring?

Well, what appeared to be happening was that large numbers of English speaking computer staff were coming from certain Commonwealth countries, possibly ones such as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand (where they all apparently speak English - ed) and working on short term contracts through recruitment agencies.

What was then happening was that these feisty Southern Hemisphere blighters would then scoot of back to sunnier climes but fail to pay their outstanding taxes in the UK. This was leaving the agencies not only financially wrong footed but open to attack by the tax authorities as the staff had been working for the agencies, and so the agencies were liable for the non-payment of taxes on all the income that the contractors had been paid. What an awful bind they found themselves in.

Now, the recruitment agencies, being smarter the normal bear, thought that this was a little unfair. So after some gatherings they decided that the way ahead would be to ensure that all freelance contractors that they would do business with would have to work through an intermediary company.

What this meant was that the contractors would either have to create their own company or join an umbrella company. So, by the mid  '80s not only the commonwealth contractors, but all of their British counterparts had to work in this way, that is if they wanted to get a contract through agencies.

With this seemingly deft stroke, it meant that the intermediary company was now liable for all of the taxes. It was a on reflection a genuine masterstroke by the agencies.

It is worth noting that a company is an standalone entity and is arguably treated as a pseudo person; with certain rights and responsibilities. One that stands out, is that it should minimise its taxation and maximise its profit, that is the whole point of the company.

So, moving on, we reach the late '80s and times were particularly fecund for computer contractors. There was a severe skills shortage of programmers (why and if that was really the case is for another post - ed). Why? Well this was the era of the personal computer, PC, which had recently been legitimatised by IBM, and that, with the costs of computer hardware costs falling year on year, each and every business thought they could build bespoke software to get them ahead of the competition by computerising  their business .

So the number of freelance contractors were creating companies in their hundreds and thousands. You could buy an off the shelf company one day and be on a contract the next, this easy move could easily double your net income at a stroke. It may be the case (highly contentious that one - ed) that some people even left their salaried job with a company on the Friday and came back as a contractor to work at the same company the following Monday doing exactly the same job (more fool the management of that company, but programming skills were in short supply and you needed to keep a hold of your staff one way or another - ed)

The grass was ever so, ever so green in the bright days of the mid to late '80s. But there were dangers lurking in the grass. These new owners of what is now called a SME (Small & Medium Enterprise) were making the best use of the tax benefits of being employed by a small company, that they owned (possibly in conjunction with their wife - ed), many, but not all, were paying themselves a very small amount of salary then taking all of the rest of the companies income as dividends. So what I hear you ask?

Well, suffice to say, UK taxation is an overly complicated beast at the best of times, but by use of a company, you could make use of the different levels of taxation depending on how you took income from the company.

Paying yourself a salary meant that your company would have to pay the following taxes:

• PAYE, 
• employee's NI, 
• and then employer's NI. 

For instance a £20K salary in year  2011-12 (with tax code 747) would cost your company £21,784:

• £2504 as PAYE
• £1532 as Employee's NI
• £1784 as Employers NI
• £15,963 of net income from this notional £20K salary

However, if you paid yourself money as a company dividend, as your company was very profitable, then the company would have to pay tax on its profit (Corporation Tax at the Small Company rate - around 22%), but you would then only have to pay personal tax (via self-assessment) and not a jot, not an iota of NI, either employees or employers. This was highlighted in numerous articles in the good old Freelance Informer (long may it rest in peace - ed) and by the freelance contractors that you met in your daily work as a salaried programmer.

But wait, it gets even better. You, as an employee of your company, could even claim various expenses, that as a salaried employee of the end client company could not, like travel! There's more, rather than paying for all that computer kit, the software, the printer, office expenses etc out of your net income, your company could pay for it all. But as good as it gets, you would still have to earn the money by putting in the hours for the client. There's nowt for nowt as some might say.

Good times never last, boom becomes bust

So, the 80's became the 90's and there was a rather nasty recession (there had been a rip snorter in the late 70's and early 80's - historical accuracy ed), where contract rates fell and work dried up, and many once-were contractors moved back to the permanent world of work. What do I mean rates fell? I mean that the next contract would be for fewer pounds per hour than the previous one, something that many permanent staff fail to get their heads around.

However, the tight times of the early 90's turned into the fairly middling 90's and then the end of the Millennium and dot.com hyped boom. Rates became engorged and contractors were making money hand over fist as programming skills were scarce, so as demand rose and the supply failed to expand so contract rates rose (allegedly - ed).

What another recession but we'd barely got out of the last one

Now as you can imagine, the Y2K and dot com boom raised contract rates to unheard of heights, but we should all have been a bit more aware, as with every boom there is and will always going to be a bust and there was a very very hard one in the contract IT industry.

For most, if not all contractors, rates took a massive tumble post boom, with the end clients taking every opportunity to drive down costs (as they should - ed). So not only did the number of potential contracts plunge from 2001 onwards so did contract rates. Some clients even took to offering contractors permanent roles in their organisations (to reduce the cost even more - ed)

So not only do rates can go up and down, the number of available contracts goes up and down.


Gordon Brown Rears His Ugly Head

Now initially, the Chancellor came up with a few good wheezes that helped small companies, but they were not to last. Freeing the Bank of England from political control was undoubtedly a brilliant move, and bringing in legislation to try and help small companies get paid more quickly was undeniably beneficial, however, when he stood up in the House of Commons in 1999 he managed in one fail swoop to do what had been considered impossible, cause the herding of cats,  that is, the creation of The PCG (now known as IPSE)

Now, the inconspicuous phrase that Uncle Gordon (Gordon is a moron, anyone - music ed) used was, " Details of this, of minor duty changes and of measures to combat tax avoidance are published this afternoon.". 

Now the measures to combat tax avoidance, became what is known as, "IR35" .

Now if you read what IR35 says, and it is worth it, as it is very short (So off you go - ed). IR35 sets out to be targeting itself at employees who leave a company on the Friday, and start work again on the Monday working through their own company. Seems so straightforward (cans of worms lurk around every corner - ed)

What this short pamphlet does bring into our business lexicon are some new business concepts, namely: "personal service provision", "disguised employee" and  "fair share"

You might be wondering how this is advantageous for the ex-employee, the now disguised employee? Simply this, they get to decide how they extract income from their company. But as far as the Chancellor and the Inland Revenue (now HMRC - ed) are concerned the proposal is thus:

The aim of the proposed changes is to ensure that people working in what is, in effect, disguised employment will, in practice, pay the same tax and national insurance as someone employed directly.

Most remarkably and something which does not seem to be highlighted at all in most discussions on IR35, is this Monday to Friday move is clearly highly advantageous to the previous employer and now the current disguised employer (one and the same - ed) as this now disguised employee loses all employment rights, the previous employer then has no longer to pay for sick pay, holidays, pension contributions, maternity leave and training etc. In fact, IR35 tells us this about the disguised employee quite clearly:

But those who do participate (in this avoidance - ed) often have to pay a price in terms of loss of protection under employment law. They may find their terms and conditions altered - perhaps losing entitlement to sick pay or maternity leave. They may even lose their jobs without entitlement to notice or redundancy pay. They will usually have no right to any claim for unfair dismissal and may lose their entitlement to social security benefits through a failure to make adequate contributions.

So, why on earth would an employee do this then? Simply the employee wouldn't unless forced to by the employer.

For what it is worth, the Inland Revenue and the Labour Government have never come up with any facts to prove

• that this was occurring at all and if so, in what numbers, 
• the amount of taxes lost due to this kind of avoidance or even 
• what cost benefit analysis was

The real fly in the ointment, was the part of the pamphlet that said:

The proposed changes are aimed only at engagements with essential characteristics of employment. They should affect only those cases where these characteristics are disguised through use of an intermediary - such as a service company or partnership. There is no intention to redefine the existing boundary between employment and self-employment.

What was and still is to my mind wonderful fuzziness about these few sentences, and as the ensuing hundreds of IR35 cases that the PCG have fought and mostly won 1498 and lost only 10 cases against HMRC (2011 figures from PCG)

If the Friday to Monday scenario was simply the cause of the issue, then surely the simplest solution would for the HMRC to check whether the disguised employee had been working at the company at some time in the near past. Hey ho - but what do I know.

Escaping the Reaper

I really don't want to get into the hoops that freelance contractors have to jump through to ensure as best as they can that their contracts are outside of IR35. There is no such thing as IR35 proof, by the way!

But, one of the unintended consequences of the legislation is to take us into the realms of MOO (Mutuality of Obligation), Substitution, Direction and Control and what's worse, the whole grey area that is employment and self-employment.

Legislation Fails to Hit the Mark in terms of Tax Take

What is worse than the above, was that after a, "consultation period", the Inland Revenue brought out another document, that clarified IR35, bringing into our business lexicon another new term, "personal service company", which has no legal standing, and is only something dreamed up by the Inland Revenue. Try looking at the Articles of Association for your business, and see if you can find this terminology! There is also the quite unbelievable, "hypothetical contract", idea, another roister doister from the IR, as shown below:

It is therefore necessary under the legislation to construct a hypothetical contract between the worker and the client based on all the circumstances including the terms and conditions of relevant contracts and the actual substance of the arrangements between the parties. Subject to meeting the other conditions, if that hypothetical contract would be one of service then the engagement is within the legislation.

So, what they are effectively saying is , they are making a non-existent contract up, which can then be used  to catch you with the legislation. No wonder they have lost so many cases when being taken to court, they must be having a laugh.

Now, it is interesting to return to the amount of money the Government thought that it would  (to contradict yourself from above - ed) raise with the legislation.

Now the Regulatory Impact Assessment (this is the assessment the Government was honour bound to do, to see what the impact a new piece of regulation would have on the economy - ed), estimated that the tax revenue would be £220m a year in National Insurance Contributions and an additional £80m in income tax! Wow, £300m quite a bit of money.

The strange thing is, that the Labour Government when asked in the House of Commons over a number of years were unable to specify how much additional NI & tax had been raised! What? Yup, they had no idea or in one case the minister standing in for the Chancellor said,

"The intermediaries legislation, commonly known as "IR35", was introduced with effect from 6 April 2000 to counter the avoidance of employed levels of tax and national insurance by individuals providing their services through intermediaries. Disclosure of HM Revenue and Customs' compliance data relating to the legislation would result in a risk of non- compliance with the legislation. Accordingly I am not able to provide the data requested."

So I can't tell you, as that would risk non-compliance, what a load of drivel!

What has been subsequently been found out with a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in 2009, the following:

"The FOI reply revealed that in the tax years 2002/03 to 2007/08, IR35 directly raised just £9.2 million. This equates to an average of around only £1.5 million per tax year, less than 1% of the expected amount. It is not clear whether this includes the NI contribution, or is just income tax."

Lying Politicians (no oxymoron there, I can assure you)

So given the above record, of

• losing cases 
• raising little money 
• decrease in number of new cases (from 158 in 2007, down to 12 in 2009 and 23 in 2010 and the change of Government

why, now nearly 3 years ago, is the legislation still on the books? Why hasn't it been revoked?

Well, there is another story to be told here, the Tories and their friends the Lib Dems, had both suggested in opposition that IR35 would be looked into (removed) when/if they got into government as they had been swayed by the number of respectable professional organisation that were saying that it was not only not worth the paper it was written on, but that it had been shown to be incredibly hard to implement and was still a very grey area for all concerned.

So what happened after the election, the Coalition kicked off a review of Small Business Taxation, by the beautifully named Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) that would take into account IR35.

This review came to the following conclusions:

• Suspend IR35, with the view to abolishing it permanently
• Retain IR35 in its existing form but with explicit commitments from HMRC to make specified changes to the enforcement of the legislation
• Introduction of a "genuine business test" to give business a good steer as to whether they are caught or clear of the legislation

What the Government appear to be going to do is retain IR35 and introduce a "genuine business test".

So, we get to keep all the uncertainties of the old regime and have more hoops introduced for contractors to jump through to prove that they are genuine businesses and not simply Money Grabbing B******* who don't pair their fair share of tax.

So where are we know

Well the PCG is no longer a single issue organisation, it undoubtedly failed totally in its original goal of removing IR35 from the statute books. However, to give it its due, it has help large numbers of contractors fight IR35 cases against the HMRC and win the vast majority of them.

Afterthought

My history has lost its way, the rant is all but spent, and now I need to put this post to bed.

Night night.

Long Time Afterward

Given that this was written over 3 (three - not related to the mobile phone company - ed) there have  been proposed changes to IR35 that are worth examining (in some detail - ed) - read IR35 Mark 2 (or is it 3,4 or 5?) for the latest proposal.

I will be creating an new blog post about "off-payroll", with thoughts on this over the coming weeks (this is me writing this in November 2016) once we have had the clarification from HMRC sometime before 5th December 2016.

In rare moments of clarity - it is clear to me that the Government really hasn't got a clue about much about anything.

Yes Minister the IR35 Off Payroll Version - a spoof.

Damn that television

Well, a short post, to let you all know that I almost had a 1,000 hits in March alone, missed it by just 18, darn it!

You all must do better this month, forward links to interesting posts (if there are any - sigh ed) to your friends (you never know they might like some of the wiffle - ed).

So stay with me folks, the long awaited post on Freelance Contracting is wending its way to publication, there is still Oxford's Underground Cathedral in the wings, followed by the following posts: Politicians Uh (What Are They Good For), Emotions, Angels on my Shoulders, Stream of Unconsciousness, Mission Control, Romance of the FA Cup,  Logging and the Truth, It's One O'Clock, Your Lying Eyes, He's Lost Control, Black Dog and Government Spending (that is long long overdue - ed)

Naturally, this doesn't exclude me from writing other stuff that in the news that makes me irate (which is pretty much everything at the moment - ed)

Toodle pip.

Afterthought
Upon further investigation, the statistics (what lies, damn lies and ,,, - ed) for the last month, are in fact for the rolling last month (that is last 30 days I think - ed), so not a real month at all, which explains why the last months hit keeps varying when I looked at them on April 1st.

As April 1st was moing towards its end (well late evening - ed) I was coming up with explanations of people further to the West i.e. in the USA and Hawaii were reading the blog and so altering the hit statistics

So much for my intellect then, I had put my spin on what the statistics meant, rather than what they actually mean.

Even so, adds up to 30 or so hits a day, which ain't bad given the restricted number of people who follow it from friends and family on Facebook, and Twitter.

A Ship of the Line

Well, we celebrated my Dad's Birthday yesterdays at Heather and Paul's house in Didcot (place of the mightly cooling towers if you manage to look out to the East whilst on the A34 South of Oxford).

The hush hush painting was unveiled as my present to my Dad. He also received a hamper full of goodies from my Sister none which would be recommended by a Dr, luckily there wasn't one about and a bottle of something alcoholic from Brother Paul.

So, A Ship of the Line, what is that all about? This is the Ship of The Line that my Dad had mentioned back at Xmas that he would like to have me paint. I postponed and postponed it for weeks, but eventually I had to have a go at starting it (strangely the more it was postponed, the closer it came to the Birthday that it had to be done for - time management ed).

The hardest part was doing the initial sketch. Did some research on the web and found a number of photos and paintings of the HMS Victory. Used them as a basis for my creation and used a second hand artistic licence I picked up on the cheap from EBay.

Took quite some time before I got the prow right, if you look at pictures of the actual ship, it has a really odd look about the front which I struggled to capture. The sails were a breeze (ho ho - ed). 

I noticed that I got caught (again - art ed) with having to do detail around the edges of the ship which was much  harder than I expected (or wanted - ed), and that was all very fiddly. Howerver, all a good learning experience, will read up on a couple of things to see if I can find ways of making my life a little easier on this front, presumably I am missing some easy technique (or at least he is hoping that is the case, maybe it is simply hard - ed)

So where am I now on my adventure in oil painting land. I have painted a ship, various flowers, a cat, a dog, a lion, a b&w person, various sunrises and sunsets, seas and skies, one landscape and trees, so what next?

On my own personal list (of paintings to be done - ed), I have a painting to do of Bridget ('er indoors - ed), and that is an interesting one, have a good range of photos, just need to pick the right one and see how it turns out. Also, quite fancy doing a tiger, full facial, because that will have some lovely colours.

Also, speaking to Esmerelda of Oz this morning (she really is a real person, though the name may have been changed to protect some innocent person or other - ed), and talked about the painting of Tanhouse Lane that she wanted, and it seems that what is needed is an essence of Tanhouse lane, i.e. not realistic, but an almalgam of the bits that she likes. Fancy trying that in a Impressionist vein, will keep you posted on that.

Anyhow, here you go, a subset of the photos I took whilst doing the painting, which in elapsed days and actual time spent was the longest that I have had to do.

First sketch attempt (actually nth, lots of expostulations and use of eraser)

Last alterations to sketch before painting started

See the sea

Sea and sky (errmm)

Sea, sky and sails

Now for the ship itself

Hmm, time for some black it seems

Friggin' with the riggin'

Liven up the sea and sky. Cannon added

More detailing, frizzin rattin rigging Dick Dastardly

More bow and wake, more clouds

More rigging etc must stop with the fiddling! Finished article

Market failures

I have been reading a book, "How Markets Fail", by John Cassidy, borrowed from the local library (and when he says local he means less than 200 yards away, European readers, about 180 metres - ed) and have not only been understanding what it says, but actually enjoying reading it (how can that be - amazed ed)!

Now being that kind of sad person (What? You have a problem with lack of light in Winter in the Northern Hemisphere - medical ed), in that I read books on Economics amongst other things. I have now read more than a few books on the most recent recession and this particular book is damn fine (like a wine, it seems to get better the more I drink of it - waxing lyrical ed).

It gives a history of economic theories over the past 150 years or so, and trips lightly to the conclusion that most (but not all - economics ed) economic theories fail to explain anything that appears to happen in the real world at all (you just can't trust those trusty theories - ed). There does seem to have been a move to more realistic theories in recent years, as they start to take into account that most interesting factor, "real people" and psychology. What took them so long you may well ask?

Most (if not all - ed?) of the older theories that had been put forward (and taught as gospel in many Universities - education ed) had a large number of assumptions that failed to match the real world, and unfortunately for us, were used as tools to help in policy making by governments and financial authorities  world wide (oops - ed)

What economics seems to boil down to is; that the world is inhabited by irrational people with an inbuilt herd instinct, who are forgetful of  history and have absolutely no ability to foresee the future (well how many more booms and busts do there need to be before we get that it is the norm - economics ed). 

So given this, what I do find amusing, is that most of us in work have pension schemes where our pension fund managers invest our money to beat "the market" but where history shows us and time again that most managers fail to beat the market average (Worth reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's books, The Black Swan & Fooled By Randomness, which although are a bit of a hard read, are very enlightening - economics ed). Worth noting that there will always be some people who beat the market, but that is most likely (tee hee - maths ed) down to probability.

Markets of all kind seem to move in cycles, generally boom and bust (like in in the UK the market for houses - see here, for the boom and busts over just the last 40 years, including our latest one - ed) but we seem to forget it after a few short years! Remember even Gordon Brown (hiss, boo - ed) told us with all sincerity that, "we will never return to the old boom and bust", as recently as 2006, just before we entered the longest recession in generations! So much for that theory!

So, if you are a little interested in why we are where we are, this is a book I can recommend.

Afterthought
Another entertaining and very readable book is, "Whoops", by John Lanchester, a book which is a breeze to read and very informative on the subject of how we got into this current mess.

Graphery [Thoughtlet]

Definition: Graphery:- the act of playing around with interactive online graphs. Example here. First known word use here.

Tax cuts for millionaires

This keeps getting raised and it annoys the pants of me (well rotated pairs I hope - fashion ed). 

In April 2009 Alistair Darling, the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a new 50% tax rate on all income above £150,000. Previously the highest rate was 40% for all income above £37,400. This measure was timed to come into effect from 5 April 2010, just before the next UK election, which the Labour party expected to lose, and indeed did (hurrah - agitprop ed)

So, whichever Government that was going to follow them, was going to find the economic outlook pretty grim and the Government income and expenditure in total disarray (as ever after a Labour Government - economics ed), in fact the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne left a note for the next incumbent of the office, which read, and I quote, "Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there's no money left. Kind regards – and good luck! Liam."

Now, given that the Labour party had been in power since 1997, that is, 12 years, before creating this new tax band you have to ask yourself if this measure was going to raise a substantial amount of income tax, why had they not brought it in beforehand?

Simply politics, given their inevitable and indeed looming defeat, the Labour Party wanted to put the following Government (now the Coalition - ed) in a bit of a dilemma, given that, removing this new tax band, would cause huge political fallout. In fact the Labour party have used the partial removal of this band to berate the new Government over tax cuts for millionaires.

This was and still is a political masterstroke, as here we are in 2013 with the Coalition, which announced a reduction of this new rate from 50% to 45% in the April 2012 Budget, and with its actual removal looming on the 5 April 2013 being berated after the Chancellor's Budget speech with this hackneyed phrase,  by the Labour leader, Ed Miliband (like the real thing, David Miliband, but softer and more cuddly - ed)

Now, I am not sure about you but £150,000 (in any ones book a lot of dosh, moolah, rhino, cash - ed) however it is not a £1,000,000  (that's even more dosh - ed) by any stretch of the imagination, but that is the Labour Party for you, never very good with figures.

What I will endeavour to show, by showing the costs of various salaries through the periods 2009-10 (last year of the Labour government, without 50% band, so max rate 40%), 2012-13 (last year with  50% band) and the forthcoming tax year 2013-14 (50% band decreased to 45%) how much tax a disparate set of incomes actually raises.

Note the figure the furthest on the right is the percentage of income that the tax payer keeps, it is quite noticeable that the proportion that you keep decreases the more you earn, progressive taxation is what it is called, not only do you pay more in pounds, you pay an increasing percentage.

The tables also shows the cost to the employer as your gross income plus the employers NI contributions that are in effect a "job tax" on the worker.

2009-10 Last Year of Labour Government 40% Upper Tax Band

Makes for some interesting reading for the year 2009-10 above, that under the Labour government a millionaire salaried worker (perhaps a Premier league footballer or perhaps a banker - ed) gets net pay of 59.63% or £596,313 (ooh that's large - ed) but also generated £530,954 in income taxes (includes income tax, employees NI and  employers NI - ed)

Last financial year with 50% upper band

For this last financial year, we can see that the "millionaire" is now only getting net pay of 49.85%  or £498,537 but is generating £638,429 to the Government coffers! That is quite a substantial extra contribution of over around £107,000 more  a year than under the Labour Government. If this is that lucrative for the Government, why didn't they raise it earlier?

Coming Tax Year 2013-14, with 50% cut to a 45% Upper Tax Band

In the coming financial year, the millionaire will be keeping 50.29% of their income, or £502,908 but still be generating £634,030 for the Government coffers. So, even with this, "tax cut", the "millionaire" tax payer is still contributing more to the Government coffers than at any time under the Labour Government.

Given the large amount of money that these "millionaires" (anyone earning over £150,000 being a millionaire obviously - ed) generate, surely we want more of them rather than fewer, as each one of them contributes one hundred and twenty times more than the £20,000 a year tax payer.

Afterthought
It is worth noting, that in the year 2009-10, according to HMRC, there were 16,000 people who declared themselves as having incomes of £1 million or greater, by 2010-11 there were only 6,000 in the same group.

It is unlikely that 10,000 millionaire income earners disappeared, it is more likely that some brought forward their income (as these high earners are generally paying themselves via dividends rather than as PAYE - ed) to pay at the lower tax rate, or they may have put off taking that income until a later time when the rate has been reduced, as high earners can usually do, as they have well paid accountants and financial advisers to help them make these seemingly tricky decisions

Those earning £150,000+ (308,000 people) pay £47bn or just under 30% of the total.

Those earning between £35,000 and £150,000 (3.7 million people) pay £57bn or 34% of the total

Given that there around around 30 million workers in the country (according to the HMRC, so the figure must be right - ed), then the rest of the 26 million works pay the rest, 36%, of the total.

What is also interesting about these figures, is that most, in fact 80% of the workers in this country earn an after tax income of less than £35,000. In fact there is a nice bit of graphery (is that really a word? - ed) over at the Guardian, which is interesting to play with.

So in an environment where the words, "paying their fair share of tax" is bandied about, given that the top 20% already contribute 64% of the tax, aren't they already paying their fair share of the tax?

Power On

Well, since 08:28 this morning, this has been a no power household. It finally came back on at 17:55. Makes me wonder if the freezer has managed OK, not opened the door at all, but did open the fridge door a couple of times to make some hand warming cups of tea. Luckily for us we have a gas hob, which had to be lit with a lighter, but managed that without any incident (Ray Mears would have been proud of you - ed)

When I rang the power company this morning they said that the power would be back in an hour. A little optimistic in retrospect methinks. Rang again at 16:15, and was told that it would be on between 4 and 5pm. Well they were a little later than that, but arguably better late than never. At least we aren't snowed in down in the South as some parts of Scotland are who haev been without power for a few days now.

Funnily enough had just lit some candles in the front room, as the light was fading, and dug out the rewindable torch, but failed to find the battery powered torch. Know that I put it somewhere sensible (dangerous thing when he knows where something is - look what happened in the Attic - ed) but have not been sufficiently goaded to properly look for it. Think I am all searched out after Sunday in the attic.

But the  power is now back on I am just knocking out a quick post about it. I mean my readers need to be informed.

Seems that not all of Alton was struck, as I braved the bitter cold of the great outsdoors earlier, well I did  pop to Boots and Sainsbury's to stock up on a couple of items and noticed that Alton High Street was unaffected.

Mildly disappointed that the power is back on, I was looking forward to deciding whether we should go out to The George for dinner, assuming they had power or staying in and cooking a meal on the gas hob and eating a candlelit dinnner which did sound quite attractive, but that would require a bottle of wine to make it romantic?

Nothing on the Scottish and Southern Electric Power Distribution Site with the reason for the failure, all they said this morning was that there was a problem at a local substation.

What was noticeable, with the power outage, was that when the mobile phone ran out of charge and I couldn't access any form of news or social media and strangely the world didn't end? Bizarre eh! We are lucky to still have a landline phone (that old style technology does sometimes come in handy - ed), and the extension in the bedroom worked, but the main phone downstairs didn't as needs mains power. But what can you do with a landline in terms of accessing information on the internet without a working router (which needs electricity - ed) not much it seems.

Afterthought
Might be worth investing in a spare battery for the mobile to give me a little bit more time on the internet should we get another power outage (but you would have to keep it charged, and somewhere where you can remember, so that you can find it should the need arise - ed)

Attic

Been having a bit of a sort out of the attic. Not the one between the ears, but the real one up between the rafters.

Now, this is one of those jobs that gets postponed and postponed, but I was looking for something and I thought I knew where it was (he didn't as it turned out - ed) and unwisely I was determined to find it.

So Sunday afternoon, when it was bitterly cold outside and it was merely cold in the attic, the hatch was opened, the ladder lowered, and my loins were girded ready for action, Luckily I have a system which was put into effect when the boxes went up into the attic a couple of years ago. But even with the initial best of intentions things in the attic have lost a little shape since then, as you will see below (sigh - ed)

However, a slight aide before I start the story. I do have a number of theories to do with putting boxes in the attic, namely the following rules:

1. Don't do it at all. Never ever, ever put boxes in the attic. Remember don't do it, because if you do, at some point there will be something you need that is in the attic and will not been findable or alternatively you are moving house and need to 'Clear the Attic', which involves bringing the boxes down from the attic, repackaging the contents into newer, less decrepit boxes, moving the said boxes to  the following house, putting the boxes back up into the next attic. I recall taking two days to empty an attic at one house, luckily, the contents never went back into the attic of the following house, as I applied rule 1 very firmly indeed. 
2. If you do feel you need to put boxes of 'stuff' in the attic, catalogue the contents of each box and put that list on top of the box, take a photo of the contents of the box and number and date the box on both the lid and the side. The box can then be put into the attic. Ensure that the photos with the content picture and list/catalogure are put onto computer  - preferably in the cloud. Note: As and when more stuff is put in the attic, apply the same actions, otherwise madness ensues
3. Simply write on the box lid a brief overview of the contents (David's ref books, Star Trek TNG DVDs, etc - ed)
4. Put boxes in the attic all higgledypiggledy with no form or structure, because we all know that is the real way to do it.
5. Date and time boxes, which then, if remain unopened for X years are taken out of the attic and binned/recylced without opening. Remember, unopened, because you know as well as I do, if you open the box, you will find a reason to redate the box and leave in the attic. Remember, boxes in the attic are not just for Xmas, they are for life!

Now having tried, 1, 2, 3, 4 and more recently 5. at different times and in different houses, I have come to the conclusion, that 2 is the one that should work (whaddya mean should - suspicious ed).

There is a large CAVEAT in that if the boxes' lids are swapped whilst digging through boxes at a later time, this particular methodology fails unless as part of methodology 2, you write the number of the box on the side of the box as well!

Now, in our house, we have in fact implemented both Rules 1 & 2, with a little 3, 4  and 5 thrown in to make things that much more interesting. All of  Bridget's gear is boxed, photographed, numbered and dated and placed in number order in one half of the attic (excellent, well done Bridget - ed). Strangely, we never seem to need to find anything from Bridget's boxes, possibly as that would be simply too easy.

The other half of the attic (well considerably less now, as most of it has been brought downstairs to clear out - ed) is in a mix of 3/4 with lids changed to protect the innocent. So a box entitled "Ref books", which should contain Software Development Reference books, is found to contain Science Fiction books. A box named DVDs, contains a couple of bags of marbles and a treasure chest (and there was I thinking you'd lost your marbles - ed).

So, why am I clearing out the attic, I needed to find something (and when that mood is upon him, nothing, absolutely nothing will stop him, sigh - ed) and as part of that search I wanted to find a specific Fantasy book that I knew (possibly not - ed) was in the attic, Alvin Maker, by Orson Scott Card (though he did find books 2,3 and 5 in that series, failed to find the first, sigh - ed).

But, given that the looked for item was not to be found by use of any kind of  intelligent search algorithm, as I simply 'knew' it was up there, and I 'knew' what was in the box with it; due to the astounding failure to apply Rule 2, when my stuff was put into the attic the search became a look through almost every box in my half of the attic, and unsurprisingly result in a "failed to find" event; followed by an initial give up, "I'm never going to find it, mutter, mutter, Dick Dastardly", moment, that caused Bridget to apply, "Davey Control Rule 1 - feed and water at regular intervals".

So, we retreated downstairs for a cup of tea and something to eat (two fried eggs on toast, with a grind or two of black pepper, hmm - culinary ed). This was then followed by a return to the attic, now with my batteries fully charged and applying the, "You must have moved it", Rule, that is, as we had failed to find the item in my half of the attic, it must have somehow been moved to Bridget's half and it wasn't me that moved it...

So we ended up taking a look through Bridget's half of the attic only to find some unnamed, unnumbered boxes of  mine (oops - ed), which of course, did not contain the sought for article. 

At this point, the frustration had reached, "Danger Will Robinson", levels, (with siren and the flashing red lights - ed), and I decided unilaterally to,  "Sort Out", (in best Ray Winston, cockney Londoner fashion - ed), the attic good and proper. Well, obviously only my half, as Bridget's is well, already what you might call, sorted.

So what then. Every single box in my half of the attic was gone through, with all books sorted into ones to go downstairs (as he will never read them again - ed)  to be sold or given away. Alton has a very understanding 2nd hand bookseller, who will take certain types of Science Fiction and Fantasy books, so I might even make a couple of quid (enough to buy the book you failed to find? - ed)

After another hour in the dusty cold environs of the attic, when we reached the last couple of boxes, guess what, we found the box we were looking for, which, bizarrely enough, did have a description of the contents, including the item that I was looking for, written on the lid!

Somehow it had been overlooked in the intial reconnaissance (I would say, "Now there's a surprise", but that might elicit a slap to the head - cowardly ed) , as would almost naturally be the case. So, success in the end, but the failure to find the Alvin Maker book was a bit of a blow.

But, my half of the attic is, "Well Sorted", now, so I know where my marbles are (you must feel so proud - ed), I know where all my LPs are,  I know where all my CDs are, I know where all my DVDs are, the books that are being kept to potentially read are in just a couple of boxes, my work related reference books are in boxes with lids named "Ref books", it is almost like a plan. (Did you apply any of  Rule 2? - ed).

All the stuff to go, has been brought down, a dozen or so board wargames from the 70-80s, also Strategy & Tactics, Fire & Movement, Phoenix, Ares, Omni magazines, which according to the web, are now worth something, so they will be sold, hopefully as a job lot else I will be busy on speciliast websites or ebay. Can't say that that is something I am looking forward to.

Afterthought

There is a much (much much - ed) funnier blog about attics and moving written by a chap called, Michael Marshall (Smith) . Well worth a read, as are his books.

The cough that comes with going into the attic for any prolonged length of time has returned. Bizarre, that, the post cough taste, is well, "Atticy", I think that is the best word that I have to describe it. Luckily, it only lasts for a day or so until the lining of my lungs has caused a sufficient number of coughs to clear out all of the "Atticyness", gunk that I inhaled whilst moving and interrogating boxes.

BTW Haven't forgotten about the Tax Cuts for Millionaires blog, it is really just bubbling under. Be available Real Soon Now.

Flaming Hot Pickled Onions Batman

Our favourite butcher, Norman Reads, over in the nearby town (without a soul - ed) of Four Marks, which also has an embedded cheese shop (no Python sketches, thank you - ed) had a new item on their display table the other weekend. What was that I hear you ask?

Yes it was the, intriguingly named Flaming Hot Pickled Onions. These are very strong pickled onions, with chillis added. Never heard of this combination before, so had to give them a try, I mean what else could a poor boy do?
Simply, wow, I mean, wow, well actually I mean, WOW.

Absolutely incredible, now I like pickled onions, shallots, well any pickled onion like substance. But the addition of chillis just takes them to another level of wonderful.

The first one I ate caused so much zing in my mouth that I unintentionally drooled, (never a good sight to see a grown man drool - ed). It was that flavoursome, my taste buds just didn't know what had hit them, or indeed what to do with this unbelievable combination of flavours (or the excessive drool - ed).

Luckily for all, and to stop further damage to t-shirts and jumpers (he's that kinda guy readers - fashion ed), we have come up with a plan. So simple (in retrospect - drool control ed), cut them into quarters, that way eating a quarter at a time doesn't cause the consequent drool overflow my mouth (wonderful - any more details you'd like to share - culinary ed)

Here is a photograph of the jar, to show that I am not joking (seriously not joking - truth ed). 

Popped back to the butchers a little earlier on today to get some more, only to find they had none left, but they did have a couple of jars of cocktail onions with chillis, so bought them, and also asked two have two jars of the large onions put by, the next time there was a delivery. The staff at the butcher's had no clue when the chap would be delivering again. If push comes to shove come make my own, now that I know what a killer combination this is (any bacteria left in your mouth after that first whole onion? - ed)

Strangely, for something so fantastic, there is no name or address on the jar to say who makes them and where they are made. If I find out, I will let you all know, as these zingy wowy zowwy (perchance were you listening to David Bowie taday - music ed) things are the best thing ever to bring life back to a tired mouth.

Afterthought.
In case you were worried that I hadn't ranted enough about the Budget, I have another post in the offing about the so-called Millionaire's tax cut (careful now, he is primed and could go off on a rant at the merest hint of interest - economics ed).

But I have been a little busy today to get it finished. Seems that another painting is gestating. May well be another Birthday present, but very hush-hush so absolutely no information until the Birthday has been and gone.

Naturally once it is officially on display, I will  put a link to the many stages of the painting, from not quite initial sketch (was a bit of a bugger to get it into the right shape - ed) to completed article (as I am sure you would all love to see it - art critic ed)

Post Script
It is sad to report that the chap who created these beauties has stopped making them as his labelling was not up to scratch according to Trading Standards.

Budget Analysis

Well, that was mostly a non-event. Apart from George frothing and spitting as he spoke, he really could have done with wearing a bib, causing Ed Balls and Ed Miliband to spend a lot of their time ducking and diving to avoid the spittle flying from one side of the house to the other.

There is a sop to house buyers with extra help for not only all first time buyers but all those wishing to move up the housing ladder (on houses less thatn £600K - most of us - ed). It will be interesting to see whether or not this will have any effect, as the devil will be in the detail, and getting the government involved in house purchases in any way would seem to be an opportunity for an increase in form filling and might even make the system grind to a complete stop.

What has been offered to small businesses (SMEs), is an Employment Allowance, a rebate of £2,000 on their Employers National Insurance contributions, that is only one amount per company. This will be very valuable for very small companies wanting to hire their first worker, as it will wipe out the entire amount of Employers NI for workers with a salary up to £22K. But this is a pre-announcement and will only be from April 2014 (it is never from tomorrow, unless it is a tax rise, when it is usually midnight tonight - ed)

What is significant, is that from April 2014 (another year to go - ed) is that the income tax threshold is to be increased to £10,000. This means that you would be able to earn £10,000 before you pay any income tax, but you would still be paying National Insurance of £288.

What I like about this and they need to go further still, is that it is a further move to getting all those that are on low wages, and are deemed poor by the Government out of paying tax altogether.

Beer duty escalator abolished!

I wrote about the Beer Duty Escalator in a previous post and obviously that post (are you really crediting yourself with this change - faithless ed) in conjunction with the Stop the Beer Duty e-petition has been a resounding success!

Well done to The Chanceller for not only abolishing the escalator (shares in Otis headed downwards after this announcement - ed), but more much more than that - he has cut the price by 1p from Sunday, but given that that is at the wholesale level it is unlikely that the price of a pint at the 'bar face' (coal face - ed) is unlikely to go down.

Almost 2000

Up to 1988 page views (the total over the last few months - don't get too excited - circulation ed) - am I am getting quite excited to see it roll over to 2000.

I would like to thank all of you for reading my rant and wiffle, I have a list of people to thank (the list is longer than a 10,000 line code listing - in other words quite long - reckon this will need a little editing - ed)

Firstly I would like to [oh no you don't snip, snigger snigger - ed]

Post Afterthought
Hurrah, been there, done that, next number that I want is 5,000. Stick with me and let me entertain you (oooh, errr, know that one - entertainments ed)

New Press Regulator to spend our tax pounds

It appears that the new press regulation will include websites such as this one, if I cover "news-related material".

In Schedule 4, in "Key Definitions", it says and I quote:

1. (b) “relevant publisher” means a person (other than a broadcaster) who publishes in the United Kingdom:

i. a newspaper or magazine containing news-related material, or
ii. a website containing news-related material (whether or not related to a newspaper or magazine);

So what is, "news-related material", you might ask and sadly as in many Government documents, they have to define and define and then redefine their terms so that we can work out what it means. They do this in section 1 e)

e) “news-related material” means:

i. news or information about current affairs;
ii. opinion about matters relating to the news or current affairs; or
iii. gossip about celebrities, other public figures or other persons in the news.

So, hang on, I give opions about matters relating to news or current affairs, that must mean that it covers me? Do I gossip as well - don't think so, but they don't define gossip, so I have no idea on that front. So does that mean I have to subscribe to one of the Regulators? And if not what happens to me?

What is worse than this, this draft Royal Charter effectively says that our tax pounds are going to fund it for the first three years, how do I work this one out, in the section Money it states:

11.1. The Exchequer shall grant to the Recognition Panel such sums of money as are sufficient to enable the Board to commence its operations and thereafter fulfil its Purpose for the first three years after the date upon which this Charter becomes effective

Which means that after the first three years, it has to charge the Regulators that it has given the OK to, sufficient fees to keep itself ticking over. But, and here again, it comes to our tax pounds, in section 11.7 it effectively says that if the Recognition Panel racks up losses due to legal fees or

(c) wholly unforeseen events, it shall have the right to request further reasonable sums from the Exchequer.

which means if it makes a massive mistake, then we could well end up paying for it!

Who is a part of this and how does this new body work then?

Well this is the interesting part (oh no - head for the hills, its that word again - outdoor ed), the government have basically instructed the Queen (long may she continue to rule over us - Royal Ed) to issue this draft document, as they do not want to be seen to be doing it via the House of Commons or via a law (statute as they call - ed)

The document explains that a "Body Corporate" is to be created, which is simply a legal entity (thing, object - ed) somewhat grandly called the "Recognition Panel". Aha, what are they going to recognise you might wonder (wandering off at this point - ed) but that would be getting ahead of ourselves.

This "Recognition Panel", will have a board (like in a board room - ed), called the "Board of the Recoginition Panel", with me so far?

This Board, "shall be responsible for the conduct and management of the Recognition Panel’s business and affairs", with you so far, but what is its business and affairs. Patience dear friend (and particularly my foreign friends, this is a very British way of handling delicate matters that you don't want the Government to do - ed) I am going as fast as I dare!

First, they have to define a few matters about who can or cannot be on the "Board of the Recognition Panel".... dull dull dull, then they get to the purpose of the "Recognition Panel" which is.


3.1. The Purpose for which the Recognition Panel is established and incorporated is to carry on activities relating to the recognition of Regulators in accordance with the terms of this Charter.


Eh, just what are they talking about. Well, it means exactly what it says, that the purpose is to "recognise Regulators".

Right, but who are the "Regulators", and what are the terms of the Charter?

You have to realise, that you need time and effort to get to the bottom of this, as it will determine the freedom or otherwise of our Press for quite some considerable time to come, assuming that the Press themseleves understand this wiffley document (pardon Your Majesty, the wise and informative words in this document that you have so kindly brought forth - kowtowing ed). 

Heading back to the definitions section, it defines a "Regulator" this way in Key Definitions section 1:


a) “Regulator” means an independent body formed by or on behalf of relevant publishers for the purpose of conducting regulatory activities in relation to their publications;

Eh? Isn't that what the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is already. Well NO you just haven't read enough of the document yet!

The Recognition Panel will only recognise a "Regulator" if and only if they meet the the 23 (interesting number 23 - anyone read The Illuminatus Trilogy by Shea and Wilson - good books ed) conditions outlined in the Schedule, "Recognition Criteria".

This is a long and tedious list (please don't bore us with it - ed) that attempts to define what hoops a potential, "Regulator", has to jump through before being recognised as a, "Regulator", by the, "Board of the Recognition Panel". (Think I may have lost the will to live - ed)

One of the steps (count them 23 - ed) is that the "Regulator" to be has itself to create a "Board" - eh? Anyone still with me at this point, (I presume that we aren't there yet - ed)

What those who code might have noticed is that the "Recognition Panel" is in fact a meta-body, that is a body that gives the rules for the creation of other bodies, in this case, "Regulators", who are themselves "independent regulatory bodies" that need to meet various but not all of the  Leveson Inquiry recommendations. Is that the nub of the matter, yes. But where are the newspapers etc in all of this? We are almost at the point where they are mentioned but not quite mentioned!

Now, once a Regulator has been recognised, they then can allow entities to subscribe to them i.e. agree to adhere to the rules as laid out by the Regulator. This is where the Press come into it. The Press are the subscribers to the recognised Regulator - and must then abide by its rules and also fund it!

It has taken a while to get here, and I have cut out pretty much all of the gritty detail. For your interest and mine I knocked up this a coloured diagram which is basically it without most of the verbiage and who appoints who to what.

Hope this helps

So all of the above is being created to do what? Ensure that we do not put the freedom of the press under the control of the House of Commons and hopefully improve on the way the press are currently self-regulated - which is done by basically creating a new Regulator or Regulators as there can be more than one (surely there can only be one, another film reference for those who made it to here - film ed).

Who appoints the Recognition Panel?

What, you mean it isn't obvious, well that will be the Commissioner for Public Appointments, well not exactly, this Commissioner will himself appoint 4 candidates to be on an Appointments Committee and unbelievably this committe will then use a set of criteria defined in Schedule 1 section 3 named most enlighteningly, "Criteria for Appointment to the Board of the Recognition Panel". So it seems to go and on... (ariston - advert ed)

Do we really believe all of this?

I have no idea whether you belive all of the above or do not. If you read the actual Draft Royal Charter, after having read the above, it will be a bit more obvious what they are on about, and might make it easier to understand.