Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.royalmint.com/aboutus/polici ... guidelines

The page breaks down what is and isn't legal tender. For any payment over 20p, a penny coin is not legal tender.

Every single argument about whether Scottish notes are or are not legal tender is nonsensical, as the term has no definition unless your repaying a debt to a court (note, not just repaying a debt, but actually paying it to a court.)

From that link:



So Scots should be telling sassenachs to get to fuck with English notes

Let's not give them any ideas.

How do you pay a fine of £20.03 ?

I need the equivalent of lmgtfy for "clicking the link to the OP."

Osborne announces more plans for English devolution.

If the powers are meaningful and Whitehall keeps its promises to not interfere, this could be a great step forward for reducing centralisation.

I'm starting to cool on the idea of mayors, however, and wondering if I should be more supportive of a council/parliamentary approach.

The Guardian has figures that one in four MPs now derive enough income from private renting of properties that they have to declare it.

The same MPs that will be debating and voting on welfare reform.

The same welfare that includes housing benefit, a payment which goes straight [1] from the state to private landlords, and helps prop up house prices.

This is fine.

[1] edit -- this is technically incorrect, see my post below.

For clarity, are these MPs receiving the housing benefit payments?

Generally, housing benefit is paid to the tenants, who then pay the landlord (I mis-spoke above.) Tenants who have been in arrears or landlords who insist can have it paid directly to the landlord. But I'm not convinced that it resting in the tenant's account for a couple of weeks before eventually ending up in the landlord's pocket changes the big picture.

I'm not sure about devolved regions at all. Ideologically its fine, but I don't trust the bureaucracy to just waste a huge amount of money putting a bloated regional administration into place. I feel the tendency of the public sector is to self-justify as many unnecessary posts as possible, rather than keeping it to what's strictly necessary. Certainly in my experience it's usually because a director wants to boast of having x number of employers under him, even if half of them are window dressing.

Rumours that Douglas Carswell is going to quit UKIP and become indpendent

I wonder if he'll force a by election like he did last time he changed party. As I recall, the by-election when he went to UKIP was against the will of Farage.

I don't agree with his politics, but Carswell seems to be an honourable and decent chap.

Again, I can't help but feel the media are completely overhyping the UKIP issues. Some internal debate about how to use or distribute funds is not front page news, and yet strangely it is? Whispers about whether people are happy for Farage to remain as leader. Hardly party breaking but creating the appearance of massive discontent appears to be the order of the day.

The link says:

> In order to comply with the very strict rules governing an actual legal tender it is necessary, for example, actually to offer the exact amount due because no change can be demanded.
> Coins are legal tender throughout the United Kingdom for the following amount:
> 1p - for any amount not exceeding 20p
> 2p - for any amount not exceeding 20p

So if the court wants you to pay £20.73, you have to actually pay £21?

Sounds to me like Carswell rejecting the 'Short Money' on grounds of it being inappropriate are connected with him having already decided to leave the party, in which case it would be 'technically' massively inappropriate on the grounds there won't be any UKIP MPs. However, on reasonableness grounds (as it is calculated on a per vote basis, in the main), doesn't seem too unreasonable.

Where is this random speculation coming from? Has he publicly stated he's leaving the party? Is it all bullshit blown up in the media?

Ukip is lots of things. It's intelligent, moderate people who happen to be Euroskeptics and just want us to leave the EU; lumped in with some extreme Libertarians who want to dismantle the NHS and legalise guns; lumped in with actual racists (note than the BNP vote collapsed at the last election); lumped in with career politicians who just want power. Farage has held these elements together but now he's stumbling and the fault lines have opened.


Admittedly, it's not clearly written, but my reading of that is -- to pay £20.73, you must have either three 1p coins, or a 2p and 1p. In other words, copper coins are legal tender until the combined value of them is more than 20p. In other words, the "amount not exceeding" is referring to the amount of that type of coinage, and not the total amount to be repaid.

I feel like I am watching an episode of QI right now.

You know that's not in the least scientific. It might be true, but not on the basis of presented evidence (none).

It's definitely true, but I am not at liberty to discuss my sources (seriously.)

Perhaps all the racists who used to vote BNP stopped being racist.

Or maybe they changed to voting for UKIP?

I'm totally using this in my next argument.

LULZ

And no, I couldn't be fucked to trim the pic.

I'm aware of how it sounds, but it's actually true in this instance and there's nothing I can do!

Do they not have 20p pieces where you come from?

Michael Gove was in a film when he was younger, apparently.

https://twitter.com/FelicityMorse/statu ... 4450163712

In 1995 Gove was in a film starring Christopher Lee. He was the school chaplain http://t.co/ClDMl3MIkR pic.twitter.com/SlDvNerhWW

— Felicity Morse (@FelicityMorse) May 15, 2015

If you see something, say something.

I hate people who use the title "Dr" in their correspondence, the pompous, vain twats. Worse than Hitler. They should all be shot, but the bloody HRA wont let us, bloody Europeans.

Pre-emptive strike.
Good piece.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... th-busting

I could go on a massive long rant about Gove (GOVE Justive Secretary. FFS. How the gibbering hell did that happen?) and the planned trashing of the HRA and how it is so utterly wrong headed and doesn't even solve the problem they're purporting to try to solve, but Keir Starmer's already done it better than I could.

Also: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... uld-end-uk

They should have just made a firm pledge to prevent Brussels from making us have straight bananas instead, it would surely have worked just as well in securing the crucial thick twat vote.

heh
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 5051598341

It is your fault I now own 2 of each of these.

When I am Lord Protector, I will introduce a system of poetry licencing:

Tories are the party of fiscal responsibility; so responsive the ONS just announced the annual CPI is negative for the first time in 55 years. Let's hope we skirt a deflationary spiral without falling in, eh?

One of the people at work who was very proudly telling everyone that she voted Conservative was having a rant about how little tax credits she can get, and how they want to know far too much information about her before she gets her free pittance.

Ok, no need to panic: http://gu.com/p/492pp

I am surprised by this; I am sure I remember talk of negative inflation in the early 90s (possibly late 80s?) but given this is the first time for 55 years I guess not.

What does she class as too much information? I get tax credits and the stuff they ask for is pretty standard Admittedly they accuse me of lying about my childcare every 3-6 months but that's another issue entirely

I don't think it was a rant with any basis in fact.

Galloway's use of staff has been referred to the police.

No sign I am aware of that he has begun to contest the result in Bradford West.

May slaps the police, again. Tells them to stop whining and pull it together.

I quite appreciate her stance on this. For too long the Police Fed. was about the only trade union the Tories loved.

I do, too. It causes me great disquiet, though, as her other ideas are bat shit mental.

404, biatches!

Hodge stepping down from the PAC. Yippee Ki Yay.