LondonMix

It really depends on how much money you have and how complex your financial arrangements are. If they are setting up trusts for you or doing estate planning etc then fair enough. If you don't have a really significant sum to invest, I would say you are almost certainly better off figuring out your own risk profile and how much you'll need to live off in retirement and then allocating accordingly. Advice is valuable but if it eats into your returns too much, its likely not to be worth it unless you are really uncomfortable about having a go at these things yourself. 1. For your pension, the mix of bonds and shares will depend on your risk appetite and how long you have until you plan to retire- closer you get to retirement the safer your investment portfolio should become. How much you need to save will depend on the rate of return you expect on your investments (post inflation and fees) and what you think the annuity rate will be. Annuity rates have several variables but the age at which you intend to retire is the most significant. The FT has an annuity rates table to help you see what current rates are (which are at all time historical lows). There are caps to what you can put into your pension tax free (50k a year) and a lifetime limit of its value (1.25m) but beyond that there isn't too much to trip you up. State pension for must of us in our 30s will be a flat rate of 144 per week based on the new rules so when figure out how much you need to live on, you can take that into account. Also, once you hit retirement age, even though you still have to pay taxes on your income (including pension income) you don't have to pay national insurance any more which is a big savings. If you have paid off your mortgage by the time you intend to retire, you'll need a great deal less than what you currently live off of. 2. Most people put additional savings beyond their pension in an ISA up to the annual limit (cash and / or shares). Most advice is you should have a rainy day fund worth at least 6 months of expenses. Again though, each persons situation is different-- if you know your company will have to pay a certain amount of redundancy, your partner works etc, your industry is doing well etc, you might need more or less. 3. If you are on the conservative side and you are a higher rate income tax payer, you are usually better off using cash in excess of what can be invested in an ISA to pay down your mortgage as the post-tax return you'll make after transaction costs and management fees is likely to be less than the interest rate on your mortgage for most investments besides equities (maybe not now though given how low interest rates are at the moment!). If liquidity is a big concern, certain banks -- Chelsea Building Society-- offer off-set mortgages that keep funds accessible while providing the benefits of paying down your mortgage debt. 4. If you are happy to take higher levels of investment risk, you are better off making investments for which the return is largely in the form of a capital gain rather than income as we each have a significant annual capital gain allowance (10.9k) below which no tax is due. This may not sound that much, but you could make a 10% capital gain on an investment of 109k each year tax free. If you can do all of this and still have a significant amount of funds you need to invest, or you need to set up trusts, do some estate planning etc, that's probably when getting some formal advice would be most valuable. None of this is any specific advice but just some basics if you don't have any background yet :) Good luck!

And the one in Eltham? There are loads of M&S stores in shabbier parts of time :) MrBen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > red devil Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > MrBen Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > When I said it will happen. I meant Rye Lane > > will > > > eventually start to get some new independents > > and > > > the odd hipster hang out. They're only 50 > yards > > > from the front line at the moment anyway... > > > > > > I think you're safe KK, M&S execs would > never > > > open there. Between the traditional African > > dress > > > and skinny jeans brigade I can't see any of > > them > > > buying threads in there. Ditto food given the > > > price of it is beyond many. > > > > There's an M&S on Walworth Road, hardly > downtown > > Hampstead... ;-) > > That's the oft quoted exception but have you ever > been inside? It's basically their discount store > with past 6 or so seasons stock...it's where their > 2003 shapeless taupe chinos and geometric ties go > to die. Until recently it dad have the best > original vintage M&S sign of any of their branches > which I always liked. It reminded me of the St > Michael label on my first pair of Y fronts when I > was 5 years old.

What do you call a proper kitchen? I've seen houses with smaller kitchens that this flat :)

I can't say it turned me into an angel either:) But it did make school one of the things I enjoyed rather than something that bored me to tears. Still got into my share of trouble though! Multiple entry points might be the best way forward for those who mature later or who have on off day. 11 while young, is exactly the age I remember starting to dislike school as boring so for some it might be the right point.

That's really why I don't get people on the M&S thread who argue an M&S Simply Food opening up is going to create stampeding hordes in ED. It?s a convenience store and there are already a few of them doubted throughout SE London. red devil Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > MrBen Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > When I said it will happen. I meant Rye Lane > will > > eventually start to get some new independents > and > > the odd hipster hang out. They're only 50 yards > > from the front line at the moment anyway... > > > > I think you're safe KK, M&S execs would never > > open there. Between the traditional African > dress > > and skinny jeans brigade I can't see any of > them > > buying threads in there. Ditto food given the > > price of it is beyond many. > > There's an M&S on Walworth Road, hardly downtown > Hampstead... ;-)

I agree 11 may be too young. In Finland it's 16. The US equivalent of grammars start at circa 14. I do think it makes a hell of a difference to how much you enjoy school though. I was so bored at school until I went to my US grammar-equivalent, I used to skip class all the time. A bright student who isn't challenged in my experience gets bored and quickly becomes the opposite of a good student. Again, I can only speak from personal experience but my partner was the same. Top student at primary and by top I really mean top. He got bored and cocky and then went to a below par state comp and did terribly. His parents both left school at 15 and didn?t really push him which obviously also played its part. It didn't ruin his life- he eventually went to uni after a stint working at a fast food joint and now has a good job (as do his friends who were exactly the same and all in the upper stream at their school) but he definitely under achieved. They skipped class all the time (to play chess amongst other things).

I don?t know any parents who think they can fundamentally change who their kids are. However, the quality of teaching makes a huge difference to whether an individual child achieves their full potential (whatever that may be). That the quality of teaching between schools differs for all sorts of reasons (many unfair) I think is too obvious to be considered a controversial statement. Regarding buying better grades, I dare say, everyone who goes private does just that. There was a study a while back that showed that state school students outperformed privately educated students at university with the same A-level grades, suggesting that the state educated children had unrealized potential not captured in the grades they achieved in secondary school. This has been the basis for creating the new state school quotas adopted by more than 50% of Russell Group Universities, who now try to assess potential as well as current performance. Private schools outperform state schools and not solely because their intake is more naturally talented. Now, for me that shows we can still get more out of our students, and should figure out how to do that in a state funded system. Not just for the sake of equality but so we are really giving everyone the opportunity to be the best they can be. As long as there is a real performance gap between private schools and state schools, people who can afford to will often make that choice. It may be the less socially conscious thing to do but I can?t really condemn other families so quickly, having not walked in their shoes. Grammar schools are a separate issue for me though. I?m not even sure that it?s possible to get the most out of the brightest (top 1%) without streaming that?s so narrow that at some point it is essentially equivalent to grammar school anyway. Even in the Finnish system, top math students are narrowed down to streams that only include the top 0.4% in the country. I can see an argument for making grammars more meritocratic if that?s possible (offer free tutoring to any child with potential) but I believe selective streaming at some point in secondary education has a role to play.

What's the point in noting that? Really? You expressed disbelief earlier in the thread that there might not be a suitable school in Southwark for every child and that parents whose children were going to selective grammar schools were making an unnecessary (even pathetic) choice. When presented with the reality that at least a few years ago, Southwark was not able to educate a single child to 3 academic As, the only thing you have to add is those of you worrying about this might not have bright kids anyway? Is your point that because not all kids are capable of As most people shouldn?t worry about if top students are being stretched to their full potential within the state system?

Yes, when the schools are closed this won't be the case but when they are open they respond very quickly. James Barber posted a file with the first round distance offers for the local schools this year on the school admissions thread. However, this number is likely to have increased between now and then as people get in off the waiting list etc. Last year (2012s) information for Goose Green is available in Southwark's guide to starting primary school. http://www.southwark.gov.uk/downloads/download/2483/primary_school_admissions

You can email the school for this years information-- they usually respond within an hour to emails of this nature in my experience. For historical information, the admissions guide Southwark publishes it for all LA schools. For academies again you have to contact them directly but they also usually respond very quickly (an hour or two).

Not even a single child in Southwark achieving 3 As in academic subjects within the state sector is surprising (in a bad way). For those students capable of achieving it and not doing so, it is certainly a failure. Given the link between social mobility and educational attainment and the UK's abysmal record on this front I would say this should raise serious concerns. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13794591 http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility However the longer I live here the more I realise that this is at least in part due to the fact that the English seem to be hostile to the very idea of social mobility- like its some form class betrayal...

They are appealing that decision and its going to a formal hearing so they are fighting quite tenaciously for the Lordship Lane location still. Girl82 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It would be amazing if M&S were to come back to > Rye Lane. They didn't manage to get their planning > application through on Lordship Lane, so maybe > they should try Rye Lane instead! I can but > dream... > > >

If the development does create light issues -- and there are official guidelines to determine such things that I have seen planners apply- it needs to be revised. With that said, the flats themselves are really well designed. Its rare to see such generous sized two bed flats-- both rooms are good sized doubles, 2 bathroom, built in closets and storage. Its nice to see something being developed that's not a rabbit hutch.

You can speak to a light consultant who can advise you if they think the plans submitted will pose a right to light issue. If they suspect there is, raise your concerns with planning and they can request that a full daylight survey be done. Are you opposed to the extension, or converting the house into flats or both?

Your objections are hard to understand. Are you saying that campaign for justice she ran for years, the impact that campaign had on government institutions and the charity she established (and the good work it has done) are run of the mill accomplishments achieved by lots of people and therefore not worthy of a peerage or are you saying more people deserve peerages? Of course the appointment is contrived in the sense that it has some political dimension to it. However, if it wasn't broadly supported by public opinion then as a political act it would have no impact. Adding a voice within parliamentary debate of someone who has fought against injustice and corruption within government institutions seems like a good idea to me.

That's right, you need a key and you have to live in the square.

Yes, the revelations about how widespread they are is rather shocking. Zero contract hours gives absolutely no security to employees and really shouldn't be allowed. Even if you need some one to be flexible you should still be able to put them on at least a temporary contract with varied hours. Zero hour contracts are just exploitation.

You mean his campaign against child porn searches? Its pointless as Google very effectively does this already but there is nothing wrong with the sentiment. polla2256 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Come on it wasn't hard - I was commenting on his > approach to internet sensorship in respect to his > idea of a search engines ability to return nil > results using certain search strings.

Hey if you are going to use projections for growth in Iceland its fair play to do the same for the UK! I agree though that no one knows what the future holds. Forgetting the future, relative to where both Iceland and the UK were in 2008, we in the UK are much better off today then they are. They are massively poorer that they were due to severe levels of inflation and have suffered a much more singificant recession. I wouldn't trade places with them.

To be a free school your curriculum needs to broadly be in line with the National Curriculum and you also need to show there is sufficient interest to sustain a full sized school. Those are likely to be the most significant hurdles anyone making an application has.

That there weren?t more consequences for those that took their financial institutions and the global economy to the brink of a global depression is shameful. And despite the raft of new regulations increasing how well capitalized the banks have to be, capping bonuses as a % of salary across all of Europe including the UK and a raft of new regulations I remain deeply skeptical that this is the last major financial crisis we?ll have. However, that analysis on Iceland is flawed. Sure, in future they will grow faster than EU but that?s only to make up for how much they shrank. After the collapse, Iceland?s GDP contracted a total of 10.7% over the following 2 years. Just to get back to where they were in 2008 will take them until 2016 based on current growth forecasts before adjusting for inflation. Once you account for inflation, Iceland won?t be where it was before the crisis until well into the next decade. The UK on the other hand, in the same period shrunk 5%, and by the end of next year is projected to be where it was in 2008 in nominal terms. Moreover, Iceland?s unemployment rate skyrocketed from a very low 1.6% to over 8% and is still well above where it was pre-crisis and isn?t projected to go back to its pre-crisis level anytime in the next 5 years. The UK already had a higher unemployment rate so only God knows what would be happening here. Iceland?s currency has also suffered a major devaluation which means the cost of living has gone up (hence why I mentioned inflation). In the two years after the crisis, inflation totaled just under 25% and is still above 5% this year. Therefore, people are much poorer than they were in 2008 despite apparent growth in the economy. When judging what the government (and remember it was Labour who bailed out the banks) you also need to consider that the UK economy is 100 times larger than Iceland?s and the collapse of the UK banking system would have had a much larger negative impact on the global economy making the UK recession even deeper. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=2007&ey=2018&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=176%2C112&s=NGDP_R%2CNGDP_RPCH%2CPCPIPCH%2CLUR%2CGGR&grp=0&a=&pr1.x=55&pr1.y=6 Regardless of whether you think that letting the banks fail would have been better, blaming the need to reduce the fiscal deficit on the bank bailouts simply isn?t the case. The country was already running a deficit well before the bailouts were necessary. The reasons why it is now necessary to address the longstanding deficit is complicated but largely to do with the realization that the credit markets (who lend us money to close the gap between what we spend and what we collect in taxes) can cut us off if they become concerned the debt level is out of control / not-sustainable. I actually think austerity has gone too far now and is pro-cyclical and therefore despite concerns about the deficit, slowing the rate of cuts would be the best course of action. However, I can?t pretend like the budget deficit doesn?t ever need to be addressed. Also, the idea that the NHS doesn?t have new demands on it relative to a generation ago is simply not true. The NHS went from circa 3% of GDP in the 50s and early 60s to 8.4% of GDP today. The Department of Health?s Budget is 106b (90% of which is for the NHS) and uses over 19% of all tax revenue collected. Even after adjusting for inflation, the NHS budget has increased 10 fold since 1948. http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/historic-government-spending-area#data http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/historic-government-spending-area#data I actually am NOT in favour of major changes to the NHS but I do recognize that our demands on services like the NHS and the cost of providing pensions has increased and that we have to figure out how to deal with the new reality without going bankrupt. Things can?t be as they were before and that means universal benefits can?t be the norm anymore and more means testing will have to take place amongst other things.

That's true...

Neither benefit fraud nor MP expenses are major economic problems. Though the ?1b in estimated benefit fraud per year sounds hight, it is less than 1% of total benefits paid out. The GDP of the UK is over 1.5 trillion so while benefit fraud and MP expenses are serious moral concerns, the economic impact of both of these is close to nothing.

Sue, I get why you think that would be the case but the reality of it is that tax revenue as a percentage of GDP has scarcely changed since the 60s regardless of what the income tax rate has been. Look at the data from the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/tax-receipts-1963 Part of the reason for this is when you increase one form of tax, it reduces the another (higher income taxes mean people have less money to buy things and then corporate tax and VAT revenue go down). The fact is the government- regardless of which party has been in power- has consistently spent more than the tax revenue it was collecting. In the last 50 years, there was only 1 year that wasn't the case. There are real social problems that need tackling and I am not linking to the data above to suggest that we shouldn't discuss increasing taxes but its easy to oversimplify the problems the country is facing. It's not a question of we once could afford it and then all the taxes got cut and now the country is skint. Amongst other things, the demand on services has increased-- the NHS is struggling under both a babyboom and an increase in longevity that?s straining resources. Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You've reminded me to look for the historical data > I mentioned before. > > The first Tory cut in income tax was earlier than > I thought, but I distinctly remember the cuts in > the eighties. > > Wikipedia isn't always correct, but I think this > is. This is an edited (by me) extract: > > "Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect > taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during > the 1980s. > > In the first budget after her election victory in > 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and > the basic rate from 33% to 30%. > > The basic rate was also cut for three successive > budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 > and to 25% in 1988. The top rate of income tax was > cut to 40% in the 1988 budget. > > Subsequent governments reduced the basic rate > further, down to its present level of 20% in > 2007. > > Since 1976 (when it stood at 35%) the basic rate > has been reduced by 15 percentage points." > > > Voters were so keen to see more in their pay > packets (or whatever the modern equivalent is) > that they voted Tory in their droves. What they > failed to realise in their personal greed was that > their tax had been going to pay for education, the > NHS etc.. > > When these systems started to collapse, no > government could put income tax up again if they > wanted to be re-elected, so the country was > f****d, quite apart from other issues. > > That may be somewhat simplistic, but that's my > take on it. > > Thin end of the wedge. And now we've got Food > Banks.

This current gov't increased the top rate from 40% to 50% temporarily and have left it at 45%. I wouldn't call that cutting taxes. Those making over 100k have lost their personal allowance all together, which represents a significant increase in total taxes payable. I'm not a fan of the current government for lots of reasons but the idea that they have cut taxes is absurd.