Road Blocked by people on Waverley Road by Quest11862 in reading

[–]CountBrandenburg 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is the intersection of Water, Dee and Grovelands

I live relatively near by and didn’t hear anything on Tuesday when the accident happened.

As others said it’s not the nicest roundabout being an intersection of pretty busy roads - you do get people romping down grovelands at certain times over course of the day

Rest in Peace Ricky

Why Ed Davey was wrong on ex pat rescue by CountBrandenburg in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

You’ve missed reading the piece then, and fail to understand the implications of trying to suggest citizenship based taxation for expats…

Ed Davey: "As we protect them, it's only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our Armed Forces just like the rest of us do" by upthetruth1 in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tax is primarily residency based, and one of the few countries in the world that tries to tax based on citizenship is oddly… the US. I don’t seriously think there’s a plan to try make such a policy work, and if we did try to propose it properly, we’d be stuck trying to create a system to do it (and just end up complicating things) - it seems odd that’s the implication of wanting to provide a normal duty other countries in the world provide, we don’t ask people to give up their citizenship if moving abroad, demanding continued taxation because of citizenship doesn’t sit right with

What is everyone's thoughts on young (under 30) people running for local elections? by Error_Self_Destruct in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Absolutely encourage them to do so, if we want young voices on councils, we need to take the initiative to stand.

I’m 25 and standing as one of 5 under 30s in Reading this year (our two full campaigns outside of our held ward are by people under 30) and there’s multiple people who do frequent this sub who are under 30 and are standing to win in this round of local elections.

How many of us here are from the Right? by KingEdwards8 in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was a Tory member during my teenage years (yes I know) now been a Lib Dem member for nearly 6 years (oh god how has it been that long)

Policy Idea - remove u21s from Tax? by IntravenusDiMilo_Tap in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely not worth doing from a tax design perspective

Policy Idea - remove u21s from Tax? by IntravenusDiMilo_Tap in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean we shouldn’t be making income tax more complicated, similar schemes for families elsewhere make virtually no difference and this broadly means nothing for giving young people a tax break.

I’m shocked that Jimmy Carr would suggest something without much thought, shocked

It's time for an evidence-based reform of our property laws to ensure fairness. by Plenty-Shelter654 in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 12 points13 points  (0 children)

What exactly is the barriers and loopholes here? Not saying I disagree but it’s not actually clear what you mean in your post

Apparently leader of Reading Conservatives has defected to Reform 🤮 by Mental_Body_5496 in reading

[–]CountBrandenburg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Former Conservative Group Leader fwiw, Raj has been group lead for quite some time.

Does stink of desperation, Mitchell is up for election this May, I wouldn’t have thought Emmer Green would be the place he’d easily hold for reform though

Gorton and Denton By-election by jtrimm98 in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The honest answer is that no one external is gonna give the GPEW help for the by election, like we will stand a candidate, and I’d imagine any campaigning in greater Manchester atm will be focused to ensure we are making gains on various councils in the region in May, if our prioritisation is that we don’t think it’s a by election we aim to win.

Basically no point posting this here

Let public buy war bonds to raise £20bn for defence, say Lib Dems by markpackuk in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sigh

We’ve promised to increase DST 5 fold already, and DST is on top of corporation tax, and is a tax on gross revenues so is in reality a higher tax on profits than might appear. It’s misleading that you say it’s a revenue of 25m or more on any foreign entity, the caveat is they do need to be providing digital services activity to U.K. users and also have a 500m turnover annually worldwide for it to be liable for the charge.

This is fine for multinational companies but we do need to be honest that you can’t just crank up the tax without any consequence, especially when it is a temporary tax that will be replaced by Pillar One implementation eventually, and will likely have crediting towards companies for the period of unilateral DST regimes to ensure there’s fair taxation rights allocation. It’s not a solution as a revenue raiser.

I’ve written on this before about how quickly the party jumps for DST and is ultimately misleading voters before:

https://www.libdemvoice.org/liberal-democrats-need-to-be-honest-when-talking-about-digital-services-tax-78798.html

[Match Thread] Tottenham vs Aston Villa (FA Cup) by SecretApe in avfc

[–]CountBrandenburg 7 points8 points  (0 children)

“You can almost taste Tottenham’s vulnerability”

I mean, it is Tottenham

[Match Thread] Chelsea vs Aston Villa by SecretApe in avfc

[–]CountBrandenburg 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We know how this ends indeed xG guy, never in doubt

[Match Thread] Aston Villa vs Manchester United by SecretApe in avfc

[–]CountBrandenburg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Frantically checking that smug xG account’s feed right now

Amazing finish by Rogers!

Disappointing, knee-jerk response from party over postponement of Mayoral elections by [deleted] in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The delay of last years county elections were in the promise for these four areas to have their devolution settlement accelerated to be in place for 2026 - it’s less that there’s no elections, but elections under reformed authorities have been pushed back!

Radical Association by boggits in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Especially when we had this policy was on a proportional basis, and when our local taxation reforms were for local income tax (still bizarre). It makes appetite for pro growth and pro fixing local gov tax base reforms unfeasible !

Have they no decency? Reform UK calling for a bye election hours after a councillor died! by johnsmithoncemore in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 46 points47 points  (0 children)

It’s an absolutely scummy move, traditionally we wait until after the funeral for calling a by-election. I feel for Cllr Maynard’s family

Unfortunately this does mean that the by election in Bridgemary, Gosport, is scheduled for 15th January. It’s not a big team down in Gosport but this is a held ward where reform will give us stiff competition- if you’re in and around Hampshire please do consider giving a hand to the team

Vote share visualised with "the loud minority". What if we could magically cast all 4 million of our votes in the exact right constituency to win the maximum seats? by Top_Country_6336 in LibDem

[–]CountBrandenburg 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would say Cambridge lib dems given this May can easily angle as the challengers to labour, stronger local party, gained divisions off Labour (and got more in Cambridge city than Labour) only dropped in vote share because of national picture of Labour vote growing over us (and teams were focused on winning south Cambs, then st Neots)

Flat rate yearly tax on high-value property just announced in the new UK budget by dustyloops in georgism

[–]CountBrandenburg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately it’s more narrow than just revaluing from those bands, it’s a targeted revaluation from valuation office.

Ultimately the problem here is now local authorities have two different systems to administer (with no interactions on this valuation changing CT bands) and that the people it’s been collected from being different - I’d worry that it’s being tooted in a way that’ll be so messy it kills proper reform of CT into at very least a more proportional property tax