Surrey Road Cops explain why enforcement focuses on drivers, not cyclists; LTN myths busted; Geoghegan Hart defends Marcus Rashford after 'embarrassing and vile' coverage; Another motorway cyclist; 14 everestings in 14 days + more on the live blog

And do you know that Rashford is doing this? Or are you making him responsible for the actions of all footballers?

Considering they are trying to attack him for buying houses, you'd think they would have gone for the low hanging fruit of tax avoidance if they could.

Rick_Rude wrote:

The wage bill for the top 12 players at Man U tops £100m. Take those numbers across the premership and then think about all the tax avoidance. Think about all those school dinners.  

Please provide the figures - you've only given the first bit of the story

Footballers can't avoid tax on their salaries, as they are PAYE - Tax on image rights and all the associated personal payments is  a different matter.

Well IR35 may have disrupted this method,as it was designed to do,but in the early noughties it was common for premiership football clubs to hire players as self employed contractors via their own limited companies theyd setup, who then made full use of the tax benefits that provided, paid themselves low salaries but took dividend payments and wrote loads of stuff of as business expenses to reclaim VAT. I think that came to light when everyone's favourite lawyer was attempting to get one of his clients off a speeding ticket.

So the idea someone being paid more than 10million a year,is still paid through PAYE,feels awfully naive imo.

I presume that if Marcus Rashford spent £2m on property in the UK then that money would have to come from declared UK earnings? I'm not sure but that would seem like a lot of tax that he paid and that would be a good thing?

Yes, that disappeared when Marcus Rashford was about 6. There was also dodgy stuff with EBTs, but I doubt too many places have tried that since Rangers lost their case to HMRC and went bust.

AidanR wrote:

Rangers lost their case to HMRC and WENT BUST.

Careful, Ra Peepul will be after you if they find out you're saying things like that!

Awavey wrote:

Well IR35 may have disrupted this method,as it was designed to do,but in the early noughties it was common for premiership football clubs to hire players as self employed contractors via their own limited companies theyd setup, who then made full use of the tax benefits that provided, paid themselves low salaries but took dividend payments and wrote loads of stuff of as business expenses to reclaim VAT. I think that came to light when everyone's favourite lawyer was attempting to get one of his clients off a speeding ticket. So the idea someone being paid more than 10million a year,is still paid through PAYE,feels awfully naive imo.

It's not at all naive - footballers and their clubs have been repeatedly caught out  using arrangements such as "image" rights on kit and "appearance" fees that are paid to offshore holding companies rather than paid via PAYE in the UK. Some of the clubs were also using loans on works of art as a means of reducing declared income.

In the case of Marcus Rashford (which for clarity is unrelated to the above),  it's a matter of fact that he's had a director of "brand strategy and communications" working for him for the last 8 months - specifically on his non football intertests. It's been suggested that he's focussed on building a valuable personal brand around his political interventions / ethical campaigning.

Of course if the Daily Fail had done some investigative journalism into tax avoidance schemes employed by footballers and campaigned to shut the loopholes being used then that would be legitimate journalism. But, of course, they didn't. 

You can 110% count on the Mail to report tax avoidance brilliantly because the owner (a Frenchman named Penguin Rothermere or Viscount Rotherham or something like that) is an absolute expert on it, with lots of experience.

Its Brexit coverage was also admirably even handed because the owner, being utterly French, happens to own a stately pile in England (even nicer than £2m luxury semi-detached mansion).

The owner also is well informed about how to sort out child poverty and end the pandemic. Just read recent front pages and you'll see that all you need to do is string up the BBC for misleading Earl Spencer (no, not M&S or Frank of that ilk) more than 20 years ago.

Rick_Rude wrote:

The wage bill for the top 12 players at Man U tops £100m. Take those numbers across the premership and then think about all the tax avoidance. Think about all those school dinners.  

You just KNOW that the Daily Heil and the rest of the billionaire-owned right wing press have been trying desperately for weeks now to get some evidence of financial impropriety by Marcus Rashford. The fact that they can come up with nothing other than a perfectly legitimate property investment speaks volumes.

Man U players are well-paid, but it isn't their job to fund public spending out of their wages (after tax).

Nice attempt to defend a vile rag against a racially and politically motivated attack on a young man.

(A minority of top level) Footballers get paid a lot of money because they are good at what they do. And lots of people like to watch them do it. They are not responsible for school dinners or deprivation. That's the govt's responsibility. What footballers are responsible for is being the public face of a huge global industry that provides millions of jobs. 

Really lovely that "He appreciated our offensive speech and wants to be able to express himself". Maybe there's a swear box at Ineos and it was costing him too much.

Or maybe Jean-René Bernaudeau is way better at English than I ever will be at his first language...

Help! A site where I can't tell what's satire...

...and what's advertising!

In 35 years of motoring I have not come across a single rude or inconsiderate cyclist or group of cyclists on the road. Not a single one. Either that or my memory is failing.

In more than 50 years of being alive I have certainly come across many rude and inconsiderate people, but only one of those happened to be riding a bicycle (on the pavement amongst crowds of pedestrians in Cambridge) at the time.

I suspect that those who come across a lot of inconsiderate cyclists on the road are also those who come across a lot of other idiots on the road when the truth is more about their own lack of ability as drivers.

Mungecrundle wrote:

In 35 years of motoring I have not come across a single rude or inconsiderate cyclist or group of cyclists on the road. Not a single one. Either that or my memory is failing. In more than 50 years of being alive I have certainly come across many rude and inconsiderate people, but only one of those happened to be riding a bicycle (on the pavement amongst crowds of pedestrians in Cambridge) at the time. I suspect that those who come across a lot of inconsiderate cyclists on the road are also those who come across a lot of other idiots on the road when the truth is more about their own lack of ability as drivers.

Reminds me of the Jasper Carrott stand-up about his mother-in-law's driving (it was the 70's!) - "she's never had a single accident - but she's seen thousands!"

Mungecrundle wrote:

In 35 years of motoring I have not come across a single rude or inconsiderate cyclist or group of cyclists on the road. Not a single one. Either that or my memory is failing. In more than 50 years of being alive I have certainly come across many rude and inconsiderate people, but only one of those happened to be riding a bicycle (on the pavement amongst crowds of pedestrians in Cambridge) at the time. I suspect that those who come across a lot of inconsiderate cyclists on the road are also those who come across a lot of other idiots on the road when the truth is more about their own lack of ability as drivers.

I see that you reference Cambridge, but as someone living in London, we have a few.  Usual stuff - riding on the pavement, riding at people crossing the road shouting at them to get out of the way, etc.  I've interacted with a few over the years.  I remember one who had a mud guard completely obscuring his rear light, so I mentioned it to him in case he hadn't realised.  The result was a four letter filled tirade at me.  I had the same response with a guy wearing a long coat that was hanging down and blocking his light completely.  I've also spoken to a few with rear lights that weren't turned on.  Sometimes you can get on your bike and forget, so if I saw one I'd mention it to the rider.  A fair percentage would give abusive responses, some would say the battery was flat and the rest would say thanks.  These days I say nothing because it isn't worth the potential abuse, which is a shame.  

I always laugh about people going on about 'riding on the pavement' in London.  I'm always baffled as to where.  It's densely populated and the pavements are crowded in many, many places with people and/or street furniture. I've lived here for 14 years and literally never seen it. I've seen cars and lorries mounting the pavement. I suppose it's a big enough place with no well-defined boundary, so of course somewhere there may be a problem with it, but my experience is that it's usually thrown in as a standard cycling insult rather than any 'problem' in reality. 

I've certainly encountered rude/inconsiderate cyclists, mostly pavement riders,not always wild teenagers either, but sometimes on the road too. I got close passed by a rider last week going down a sketchy hill that pro riders can easily hit 40+mph on,wasnt much impressed by that I can tell you.

But in the original twitter users case,she is talking rather about the perceived rudeness/inconsiderate behaviour of cyclists not simply getting out of her way quick enough,which for my money places the rudeness/inconsideration squarely on her shoulders instead.

Awavey wrote:

But in the original twitter users case,she is talking rather about the perceived rudeness/inconsiderate behaviour of cyclists not simply getting out of her way quick enough,which for my money places the rudeness/inconsideration squarely on her shoulders instead.

Basically this. Yet how annoyed is she at other drivers when she's in a line of traffic? No waiting 5 seconds then overtaking in that situation...she has to suck it up. Yet the other drivers are not being inconsiderate for some reason...

She doesn't like cyclists filtering either. I'm getting the sense of someone stuck in traffic (and of course she is not traffic) and not liking the fact that cyclists can make good progress.

None of these car drivers seem to realise that THEY are the problem. Funny that......I wonder why. 

More needs to be done to encourage walking, cycling, public transport & motor cycling; and to discourage car driving. Queues of single person cars is insanity.......Yet they keep doing it.

I suspect the same. You drive around in an overtly aggresive manner and then complain about the cyclists being rude. I confess that I may have been triggered into swearing  at drivers that have pulled out on me, closed passed me etc...  I wonder how many tweets the police get from other law breakers in the same vain. eg " I've been supplying steroids to local gym members for several months but I don't like their increasingly aggressive behaviour"

Well said,  exactly..!!

squired wrote:

I always love the one about cyclists being rude and inconsiderate.  Then you see someone trying to cross the road on foot when it is bombing down with rain, yet no driver is willing to stop for five seconds to let them cross, or a person with limited mobility crossing the road gets hooted for being too slow.  Or one I really love is when you are in a line of traffic and a car accelerates to close the gap between them and the car in front so that a car waiting at a give way can't turn into that gap in front of them.  The simple fact is that a lot of people are rude and inconsiderate - their mode of transport doesn't suddenly change that.

Or you are waiting to cross the road in the rain and the driver doesn't indicate that they are turning into the side road between you, so you are waiting for no reason, because they don't indicate for pedestrians