RuamRudy

You highlight, precisely, the very thing that you and so many others here fail to understand. Subsidies don't need to take the form of one party receiving money from another. By not imposing a standard tariff on one particular party, the exempt party is, in effect, subsidised by the government, thus by the taxpayer.

I suggest that it is you who is among those hard of understanding. By being exempt from vat, these private businesses were receiving a subsidy.

If, after decades of being in business, it can't function without the allocation of exemptions that most private businesses don't get to enjoy, it's business model is based upon not having to share a level playing field. I don't deny that, nor does the government. That's why it provides free education for school age students.

That really isn't a justification for continuing it. Are you sure that you know that those words really mean?

That depends entirely upon the nature of the service. Non essential services which are a matter of personal preference should not, in my opinion, be exempt from vat. What, specifically, makes you say that?

It's not difficult. When one pays for a service, generally VAT is charged on top. If that service is exempt then the loss of VAT is a loss to the taxpayer.

It's right up there in the headline.

Prominent people take a very public stand to promote child safety; people who obsessively ooze hatred at the merest suggestion of their name ignore the message and attack the messenger.

If this company's business model was reliant upon taxpayer subsidies then it was clearly not a viable long term business, or it was run by people not up to the task of managing a business.

Or, just maybe, she might have been happy that her choice to privately educate her child wasn't being subsidised by the taxpayer, and that she would willingly have paid vat like a normal consumer of private services.

Brits voted for Brexit; Scots voted to remain part of the UK - when it comes to voting for dumb outcomes, we can't really claim any intellectual superiority here.

Not sure that you read the article:

Three people taken into custody in reported kidnapping of Vermonter in the Philippines Not mentioned in this article but I read elsewhere that the attackers may actually be known to his wife, and that there may be a domestic angle to the kidnapping.

Maybe everyone is so gobsmacked at how a business with such bad financial metrics is defying gravity?

Wait till you hear what they did to the guy who dangled off a bridge.

I said at the time of the big pay rises for public service workers that pensioners don't vote Labour but Unite does. I don't expect much positive to come from them.

I have no time for the man or his party, but he has some way to go before he exceeds the lies of Johnson. He and his government have yet to reach the levels of corruption that Johnson, Hancock and the rest of those criminals seem to have gotten away with. To suggest that he represents the worst of government since Blair is laughable.

Looks like not everyone got your message. "King Charles faced shouts of "you are not my King" from an independent senator just after he finished an address at Australia's Parliament House on the second official day of his engagements in the country. Thorpe, who is an independent senator from Victoria and an Aboriginal Australian woman, has long advocated for a treaty between Australia’s government and its first inhabitants." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79n20r750po

Of course not, but that's no reason to embrace entrenched, undemocratic entitlement so tightly.

I hope that he comes through this without further trauma, but Zamboanga is in the area where foreigners are regularly advised not to visit. To say that this is reflective of the Philippines overall is akin to saying Hat Yai at the height of its troubles was representative of Thailand in general.

Your description suggests Charles Windsor is someone who takes instruction and works tirelessly and selflessly for the betterment of the poor and downtrodden. I think that's more the stuff of his press office than reality. But regardless of his dedication to the less fortunate, the days of kings being brave, strong and fearlessly leading from the front are long gone. If he is all that's standing between equality of opportunity and repression of Australia's First People then there is something fundamentally wrong in your society, and he and his mother have failed in their duty to correct it.

So when you wrote, To what were you referring? Out of...?

Sadly it's not Dragon's Den - you don't get to choose whether to hand over your cash to William. He pockets it whether you like it or not.

Shell previously owned over 50% of SEIC following its asset swap with Marathon but the Russian government forced them and the other partners to hand over 50% plus 1 share to Gazprom. What they are whining about is very much ill gotten gains.

We are getting significantly of topic here, but as I have explained on this forum on more than a couple of occasions, the majority of Scottish people actually voted for independence but the results were tipped in favour of remain by incomers. This is documented fact. Anyway, back to the topic of Australia and the monarchy...