Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org

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@Geri

Yes but unelected Brussels eurocrats...

@RichardJMurphy

In Luxembourg where I live, tax evasion is a civil matter. If you get caught the civil penalties are quite severe and the taxman can take out a remortgage on any property you own and oblige you to pay it but they cannot send you to jail unless they can pin a fraud charge on you.

HRMC are according to friends of mine in the accountancy business, absolutely irrational and utterly stupid. The often opt to bankrupt or prosecute people who 'owe' tax when they would be far better off waiting to let a business get back on its feet.

I fell foul of them when I left the UK to move to Belgium. They came after me for £50,000 in unpaid tax but my accountant said he reckoned I owed them about £5000 but that it could cost as much as £10,000 to prove that to them. He said "do you have £15,000 kicking about in your bank account, looking for a home?" to which I replied "no" and he said "then bankrupt yourself then you won't owe them a penny!". The bankruptcy authorities have no jurisdiction outside the UK unless they engage in lengthy and horrendously expensive action through foreign courts which they won't attempt for a debt as relatively small as yours so...

After a day at the high courts of justice in London I was declared bankrupt. We saw the official receiver the same day and that was pretty much the end of the matter except that HMRC decided they weren't going to accept my bankruptcy - until I had a word with the official receiver who read the Riot Act to the jumped up civil servant from the collections office who was chasing me, then they shut the fuck up!

Chasing a bankrupt for a debt that precedes the bankruptcy is a very serious matter and certainly not something that a civil servant should be doing!

@CharlesTannock

I think the question should be
"If the UK expressed a desire to rejoin the EU, would there be a consensus amongst the present membership to say 'yes' to that. I'm pretty certain the answer to that is a resounding 'NO!'".

All existing members of the EU have to affirm their support for applicant countries joining and I think it likely that the tories have fucked that up!

What I do not understand is why the filthy feckin lying scumbags who were executives and senior managers at the Post Office and Fujitsu who KNEW full well that there were massive problems with the Horizon system, have not been prosecuted - they should be serving LONG prison sentences!

@mattsheffield
Yes but she's black so therefore automatically guilty of something utterly horrendous and unforgivable!

@ItsTrainingCatsAndDogs@kolektiva.social

Personally, I think it's a good idea as most carnivores will not eat the flesh of other carnivores, probably because they carry diseases that might infect or kill them.

I suspect that eating the flesh of dogs or cats is, therefore, a rather bad idea!

@lerg

I think the 'clowns' are running the assembly lines rather than designing aircraft!

@freemo

To be explicit about this I do not consider myself to be any different to the 1000s of refugees who call Luxembourg their home nor indeed to the 1000s of others who, like me, for one reason or another, moved to Luxembourg to make a living.

Living in Luxembourg shines a bright spotlight on the immigrant -v- expat question as an astonishing 47%+ of the population of Luxembourg are immigrants (yes, that isn't a typo - the official government figure is more than 47% of Luxembourg residents, were born outside the country making them immigrants like me). Even more surprisingly, taking the population of the capital city alone, more than 70% of population are immigrants - yes 70%!

I never intended to remain in Luxembourg for the 20 years that I have lived here and certainly didn't anticipate retiring here although that is what has happened. At what stage did I morph from being an 'expat' into an immigrant, I wonder? (I'm a white, sedentary, office worker and therefore absolutely "entitled" to call myself an expat according to the way that I have seen it used)

@freemo

Yes, but the problem with it is that I have never once heard of the epithet 'expat' applied to anyone except a white man or woman.

Generally, the way it is used by Brits is definitely to maintain the social distinction between themselves and other foreigners of different skin colour or doing more lowly jobs; a sort of way of extending the still very prevalent class system from the UK to lands further afield

@freemo

I'm a Brit living in Luxembourg and am therefore an immigrant. One of the most annoying habits of Brits living in foreign countries is to describe themselves as 'expats'. Like they are a cut above the rest of us mere immigrants!