Treasury aides to Osborne conceded that what will happen is that Britain will pay the £850m while not cashing the €1bn rebate cheque, suggesting that sleight-of-hand accounting was being used to mask the conclusion that the full amount demanded by Brussels would be paid.
Osborne is a toad, isn’t he?
It’s small change anyway. We’re giving away something like £12bn in the “foreign aid” slush fund per annum. Why the big deal over this trifling amount?
You learn this at Eton.
Everyone else is a mental pygmy and you are a towering genius.
The reality, of course, is that most Etonians are mental pygmies, as Osborne has just handily proved.
Osbourne didn’t go to Eton, he went to St Paul’s.
This is the kind of stuff I really hate, because it just highlights how poorly politicians think of us when they reckon they can get away with this kind of transparent wheeze.
What’s worse is that they’re generally right.
Eton or St Paul’s, it won’t stop the traitors unless people stop voting for them. Death to the LibLabCon.
“Osborne is a toad”.
Yes.
Damn, I’ll have to do a Big Dick and just pretend.
When the “EU demands £1.7 billion” story broke, I don’t remember any journalists (or politicians) saying “but it’s not quite that bad, as we’ll get a rebate in a year like we always do”.
Not a great advert the good faith or knowledge all round.
Luke,
is that because the 1.7billion was extra to the contributions already made , which were already disproportionate hence the rebate. The extra demanded as I understand it effectively cancels the rebate so UK is back to paying disproportionally more.
Luke is right. The €2.1bn was demanded as a lump sum for previous underpayments in 1996-2013.
Each year we should have got the rebate for the previous year, so we should have got the rebates in 1997-2014, So all the rebate dates were also in the past and the amount due was gross contribution less rebate. If €2.1bn was the gross contribution then the net contribution due was somewhere between €0.7bn and €1.05bn, depending on how the adjustments were spread between years.
Every night from May to November I watch frogs and toads braving the perilous journey from the ponds up the mountain to the ponds down the hill, Many come through the village and past my door.
So, Tim and sweet Frances, I think we need another basis for comparison…
“Osbourne didn’t go to Eton, he went to St Paul’s.” So did Osborne. Anyway, whatever have facts got to do with hate-filled rants about Eton?
Luke, J77 .
Yes ok like the difference between net and gross. So understand your point.
TOBII,
Yes, a few people have pointed out that the comparison is unfair to toads.
*…But you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Gideon thinks he can.
Not sure how much credence I give to The Grauniad’s interpretation of events, or to the belated claims of the EU elites that the £1.7bn would be subject to the UK’s rebate (why did they not mention the rebate earlier to soften the blow?). Both EU and Grauniad have an interest – along with UKIP, of course – in contradicting Osborne’s version of events…For now, I suspend judgement.
BluLabour are shite Theophrastus–accept it. Events will force the acknowledgement on you at some point so you might as well make it now.
Theophrastus :
” Both EU and Grauniad have an interest – along with UKIP, of course – in contradicting Osborne’s version of events…For now, I suspend judgement.”
What interest do you have in sticking your head up Osborne’s arse?
He learned this “accounting” trick from Brown, aka Mcloon the Potemkin Chancellor.
Luke + Mr Ecks,
1. Why didn’t the EU elites point out immediately that the £1.7bn was subject to the UK’s rebate?
2. Now, the reduced/rebated sum demanded is to be deferred until 2015, interest-free, and paid in instalments. Is that not a concession?
I have no time for the EU and favour withdrawal; but I can’t see how the UKIP/leftist criticism of Osborne’s small achievement stands up to scrutiny.
john77
“The €2.1bn was demanded as a lump sum for previous underpayments in 1996-2013.”
Were these underpayments reported at the time (co-incedentally just after Blair successfully reduced our rebate)? Have any such payments been asked of any member state previously? It’s the first I’ve heard of them but then I’m still in the Century of the Fruitbat and not really up to speed on this sort of thing.
Cheers,
Fatty
You can’t see it Theo because you don’t want to. If you really want to conserve the things of value about this country–try to see the BluLabour, proggie, middle/upper class, cultural-Marxism infused guardian-reading twats for what they are–not for what you fantasize they are.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/fraser-nelson/2014/11/why-did-george-osborne-spoil-a-genuine-victory-with-spin
See the above, Mr Ecks, which nails it, imho. As for Guardian-reading twats, I loathe them, which is why I am sceptical of the Guardian link that Tim bases his post on…but, hey, here The Guardian’s bias fits the UKIP narrative, so…er…it must be true!
@ Captain Fatty.
The underpayments were not reported at the time because payments made were calculated under the accounting system then in force.
Someone has decided to recalculate all nation-state incomes on a common basis which includes prostitution because prostitution is legal in Germany and included in GDP and drug-dealing. The GDP figures are now comparable but unfortunately 99.9999999999999999% likely to be wrong because no-one knows the amount of income accruing to prostitutes and drug-dealers. However, the EU as recalculated GNI’s on the new basis since 1995 of every country and calculated that the UK’s GNI has risen relative to Germany or France. The EU commission thinks that the UK’s gross contribution should be higher by €2.1bn
and a EU bureaucrat leaked to the media, while Cameron was in a Head of Governments meeting and before he knew of the demand, that the UK had to make a NET contribution of €2.1bn. See Sky New report “Britain has been told it has to pay an extra £1.7bn (€2.1bn) towards the European Union budget.
This is being called a one-off bill which would add about a fifth to the UK’s annual net contribution of £8.6bn.”
http://news.sky.com/story/1359574/uks-surcharge-row-your-questions-answered
*I* think that a 66% rebate should apply to most of this but I am not an expert on EU regulation (I have better things to do with my life) and Osborne (who employs experts on EU regulation) has accepted a 50% rebate on the lot,
Extra payments are being asked the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, *Greece* of all places,and Cyprus.
john77
Thank you for sparing the time to explain the issue. I’m off back under my rock, things are far too complicated out here and my head hurts.
Cheers,
Fatty
Theophrastus
Thanks for the link to the Speccy.
I read it that Fraser Nelson thought Osborne was doing a good impression of a toad…:)
@ CF
You’re probably a lot safer under your rock – sometimes I wish I had a rock to hide under. This morning my son went off on a fully justified condemnation of Yankee propagandists for “the Austrian school of economics” so I gently pointed out that Osborne’s so-called “austerity” involved a £100 billion pa budget deficit. He then (rightly) concluded that Osborne was far closer to Keynes than Brown.