James105

So in the middle of a cost of living crisis you want the people who pick the fruit and veg to not be paid appropriately for the work they are doing?

I have no idea, I'm not a Farage expert but he clearly believed that the UK would be better off outside of the EU. Let's not pretend that his thinking was to leave the EU and then try and stay as closely aligned as possible whilst keeping all the regulations that were part of being in the EU as then the better option would of course be to just stay in the EU. All the UK has done is tinkered around the edges trying to please everyone which of course means pleasing nobody and the inevitable failure that follows. There was an opportunity presented to radically rethink how the UK does business and it was an opportunity squandered by people who had their noses too deeply entrenched in the EU trough or just plain old incompetency. Cameron was right to resign as he didn't believe in it and unfortunately neither were the opportunists that followed, no matter what they said in public.

What a silly statement. When did I suggest that Farage should be the only person that advises the government and not draw from all sources of expertise? The people do not elect experts to govern, they elect representatives. It is down to those representatives to choose experts to advise them. What the UK government definitely lacked was a "vision" for how the UK should look 5/10/20/50 years after Brexit. Could Farage have provided that vision? Maybe/maybe not. We will never know.

Government advisors are not elected, they are chosen by the elected government ministers to.... advise. That's generally how it works. Some may even suggest that the man who made it his life's work to get the UK out of the EU and is probably the single most influential person for making it happen would have a unique insight/vision for how the UK would operate outside of the EU. I would suggest that the government did not have such a vision and tried to make Brexit a slightly worse version of what the UK had in the EU as they didn't believe in it or had their heads firmly planted in the EU trough. Would it have been a failure if Farage had been involved? We will never know.

Incorrect. https://news.sky.com/story/nigel-farage-delivers-brexit-demand-to-theresa-may-on-pms-last-day-as-tory-leader-11736845 Would it be any different if he was allowed to be involved and implement his vision? We will never know.

More likely they are trying to cut costs as a result of losing customers/subscribers as they have been focusing on wokery rather than what they used to be famous for, which was creating entertaining stories that focused on actually telling a story rather than shoe horning "the narrative" into stories where it doesn't fit. Disney are also closing their ridiculously expensive Star wars hotel (after just 18 months) that they spent hundreds of millions of $ building. Is that DeSantis fault as well? Was he responsible for setting the price at $2400 per night or are Disney execs just idiots which means they alone are responsible for the $5bn worth of cuts they are trying to make, but are trying to save face (and their jobs) by pointing fingers elsewhere? https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/disney-star-wars-starcruiser-hotel-closing-b2342598.html

All the little Scotlanders have been very, very quiet on the question of independence lately. Wonder why that is...

I don't think you will ever understand why people voted for it and looking for micro reasons such as specific EU laws that individual people wanted to see removed is probably not very helpful, and only serves to make the asker of such an inane question feel superior. People voted for change. They were fed up with the way the country was being run (for whatever reason) and that referendum gave them the single opportunity they will ever see in their lifetimes where (theoretically) their vote counted for something. Voting for Labour/Tory is a vote for more of the same, whereas the referendum was.... different. The fact that neither establishment party wanted it, or were willing to implement any kind of radical change despite being given a mandate in 2019 to enact those kind of changes is not the fault of people who voted for it, nor for that matter, who campaigned for it. Was it a mistake to leave the EU if nothing was actually going to change and the UK would still be tied into the EU regardless without making some kind of radical change? Yes. If radical changes could have been made (such as massively reducing business taxes and VAT to encourage investment/jobs, or actually reducing net inwards migration to the level of the 90s) then maybe it would have been a success. Sadly, we will never know.

The state has always censored stuff that kids are too young to see regarding sexually explicit content. That is why certain movies are given adult ratings. Only "people" with very questionable intentions for kids would want them sexualised at such a young age. Why is it that you want kids to see this stuff?

What rights has he stripped from women?

Nothing gets universal support. I presume based on your suggestion that unless over 50% of the voting age population votes for something we should retain the status quo? Would you stick with that philosophy with other things people vote for as that would mean Tory governments for at least the next century? Brexit is just a rounding error in comparison to the self inflicted financial damage of lockdowns during covid and the upcoming financial lunacy of net zero - it's a shame people are looking the other way still on something that is relatively insignificant in comparison. If you want to talk about "inherent stupidity" I'd suggest those 2 policies would be a good place to start.

An undeniable truth is that a smaller minority of the electorate voted in favour of staying in the EU. What is the point you are trying to make here?

Mass school shootings/massacres are pretty much non-existent in countries that restrict gun sales, whereas in a country like the USA where anyone and everyone can buy guns these still seem to occur quite often. Any thoughts as to why that might be? Perhaps other countries that restrict gun sales coincidentally have better parenting or something?

Here is some data about what an AR-15 does should little kids have the temerity to try and protect themselves with one of those kevlar backpacks when faced with a shooter at their school and his legally obtained AR-15: With an AR-15 (the school shooters weapon of choice) they might as well have a cheesecake strapped to their back. I don't quite understand why the gun nuts seem to feel that anyone and everyone should be able to buy these things, especially due to their prevalence in mass shootings in schools.

Quite the reliance on Russian social media for this. It's good to know that the left are starting to trust the information coming from Russia and are refraining from throwing out baseless accusations that some Russian computer nerd would be able to concoct a fake profile within 30 minutes of the shooters name being announced. I think I'll hold off until something more official comes out, which based on how long it's taken for the manifesto from the trans shooter last month to be released, I won't be holding my breath.

This was what you said: "When people watch video's as their preferred medium they are unlikely to bother clicking on any community notes underneath anyway." Just saying that without community notes the lies on that video would have gone unchecked, which is what you appeared to be saying people would not do.

Are they paying the same for the slot with half the audience as they would have had to before? I think not. This is an example of an advertiser taking advantage of the extra free advertising from making a press announcement following Tuckers firing that for minimal investment (as the adverts will be cheaper now) they can get some free news coverage. No doubt they will also advertise on Tuckers twitter channel if the audience statistics tell them that their customers or target market are watching that show.

Here is an example of a video on Twitter getting fact checked by community notes so that statement appears to be unfounded.

Let me repeat what I posted above: "In 2022, according to Vivvix, a tracker of ad spending, advertisers spent around $77.5 million on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” compared with $67.6 million in 2021, representing a jump of approximately 14.7%." A 14.7% increase year on year is typically considered a "good thing". I know it is sad when the facts do not support the narrative you want to believe in, but it is what it is.

I've bolded the words "some" and "may" as they are doing some heavy lifting there. The new audience in that time slot is half of what it was with Carlson. Do woke advertisers pay the same for an audience that is 50% of the size? I don't think so. https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/tucker-carlson-fox-news-advertisers-return-1235606123/ "Nonetheless, Carlson’s ratings — he delivered more than 3.05 million viewers on average in April before his program was cancelled — have helped buoy the economics of his program. In 2022, according to Vivvix, a tracker of ad spending, advertisers spent around $77.5 million on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” compared with $67.6 million in 2021, representing a jump of approximately 14.7%. In contrast, “Hannity” at 9 p.m. captured nearly $50.4 million in 2022, while “The Ingraham Angle” at 10 p.m. lured about $53.7 million. Viewership of the hour has slumped since Carlson’s departure. Thursday’s broadcast of “Fox News Tonight,” for example, drew an average of 1.55 million, according to data from Nielsen. The audience for the show was still greater than that for MSNBC, which captured more than 1.44 million, or CNN, which lured an average of 571,000." So in your expert opinion, who was making more advertising revenue in that time slot? 1. Carlson, with 3m viewers 2. MSNBC with 1.44m 3. CNN with 0.57m

Advertisers love advertising to big audiences, of which I am sure he will have. Not sure why the anti-free speech brigade find this this concept so difficult to comprehend. There is a great big non-woke audience out there and Bud light have recently discovered this the hard way at significant cost to their business.

It's weird how this keeps happening in a country that allows anyone and everyone to buy guns and not to the same extent in other countries that do not allow anyone and everyone to buy guns. I can't quite put my finger on why this would be.

That is good to know, thank you. In that case my head will remain below the parapet over here!

Thanks, the only thing I am concerned about with this approach is that should I return to the UK one day and HMRC asks me where I have been paying personal tax I would then have to own up to the fact I have not been and not sure if this is a good idea. This 'income from previous calendar years that is subject to zero tax' does seem ideal, but I am wondering if I should have a tax ID and an accountant here to make it official so I have some paperwork to show HMRC should it be required in the future.

The income I take from the company is the typical mixture of salary/dividends that is standard practice. I am merely guilty of not paying a penny more tax than I have to, which is a perfectly normal and legal thing to do.