Cheeky IT rival parks 'we're hiring' van outside 'vote Tory' firm Storm Technologies A rival of the reseller who threatened to sack Labour-voting employees hired a billboard van to drive past their HQ with the words “we’re hiring – where your vote is your choice” emblazoned on its side. The electoral gaffe by John Brooker, MD of Storm Technologies, was widely reported in the days after the general election on …
Well, I'm sold! When do we get to vote again?
As soon as the New Poor Laws have been enacted you won't need to worry yourself about voting ever again.
Now, my path is all muddy so lie down so that I can get to my carriage without getting my shoes all dirty. And can you send round your youngest sharpish as the chimbleys need a good clean!
"If you desire a LINUX USER for a neighbour, vote Labour.
If you are already burdened with one, vote Conservative."
BS. Linux serves without any reference to political preference. If you're a leftie you can match sandals with Stallman in his ivory tower, if you're green you can save power by being computationally efficient, if you're a scientist you can scale it up so it can even handle what CERN throws at it and if you're an entrepreneur who knows what he's doing so can save a fortune by spending a LOT less on software and license costs and employ a group of people once to make it work (instead of having to fix it after every forced update). After all, that's what little companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and others are doing, and they may be evil but they're not stupid.
"BS. Linux serves without any reference to political preference."
It's a reference to a slogan then Conservative MP Peter Griffiths used in 1964 in Smethwick:
"If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour".
In keeping with the IT feel, and the general community driven focus of Linux compared to the Corporate Monolith of Microsoft, I thought his bastardisation of the slogan written by some old bastard from the 60's was quite clever.
Wow, who would have thought that Linux could be so political? By the way, from where I stand, Apple is the evil empire, Microsoft is now one of the biggest supporters of Linux via the Linux Foundation, and the Right Wing is doing everything it can to end Net Neutrality. If they have their way, someday soon I'll have to pay for reading the Register.
I hope you Conservatives are enjoying what Brexit is doing to your country. Nice election, by the way.
- Linux user, member of the EFF and FSF, and Berniecrat.
up to 2015 I thought the coalition did a good job with what they had.
2015 voted Conservative as I liked UK in Europe with a centre right open looking government.
2017 voted LibDem as I liked UK in Europe with the most centrist party left. I just could not vote for an exit party.
My seat is Con/Lab seat noone else has a chance. Choice of hard brexshit, or slightly less hard brexshit.
I do not like Theresa May, think Jeremy Corbyn could make anything sound reasonable including nasty things, Tim Farron out of depth, Paul Nuttall a nutter, and Greens want to ban my car.
If brexshit causes the UK to go down the pan I will go around telling the brexiteers I know (if still alive) "I TOLD YOU SO!"
Oh another Merkin confusing UK and US politics.
Democrats occupy a similar place to the UK main three parties.
Republicans make UKIP seem reasonable.
Main difference between our parties is over economic policies and size of government.
>Everyone will be worse off
Except that, in the real world, everyone benefits (because those low-paid workers spend their new-found wealth, thereby boosting the economy). That's what happened in 1998, when the minimum wage was introduced (to choruses of doom-saying employers, predicting the opposite).
If you think increasing the minimum wage to over £10 will make you any better off then you are seriously mistaken
Like these bloody socialists who succeeded to forbid slavery and child labor, the bastards!
Joking aside, you are totally wrong.. There's no point to produce if nobody can't buy your goods.
> "VOTE CONSERVATIVE so I can pay you under £10 an hour and so I can pay even less tax while you all use food banks"
It's Labour, bizzarely, and the Lib Dems -not the Conservatives- that want to continue unlimited immigration in order to depress the wages of their Rumanian nannies, maids and prostitutes.
Oversupply of labour is exactly the reason employers can get away with paying less than a living wage.
I think that idea has been fairly well debunked. The evidence seems to show that EU immigrants contribute more than they take out in comparison to locals and that wages haven't been depressed bu their presence.
On the other hand I can understand being upset if you live in an area where you feel overwhelmed by a sudden influx of foreigners.
"...it's just yet another example of the arrogance of some of *some* voters,"
Unlike the A/c above I have actually FTFY
Neither the Tories or labour (or any other party for that matter) have a monopoly on dickheads in their ranks and the sooner the wider electorate grasp this simple fact, the sooner we'll be able to start doing something about it.
Neither the Tories or labour (or any other party for that matter) have a monopoly on dickheads in their ranks
No quibble with that but it's basically what I said. But I'm not so sure about an appeal to the wider electorate because. sadly, it doesn't really seem to be interested. Which maybe why the dickheads seem to dominate. Much as I revelled in May's self-inflicted bloody nose, the hung parliament doesn't look like it's going to get much done any time soon. Unless there's a cunning plan to have government by private members bills…
Neither the Tories or labour (or any other party for that matter) have a monopoly on dickheads in their ranks and the sooner the wider electorate grasp this simple fact, the sooner we'll be able to start doing something about it.
IsJustABloke is restoring my faith.
Too many are not aware of their own cognitive bias and blindly accept their favoured party's BS whilst totally dismissing the other side. They become rabidly convinced that they are correct and there's no reasoning with them.
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"We have a secret ballot"
Do we?
In my polling office they always write the number of the ballot paper I've just been given against my name and address on the roll they have in front of them, a sufficiently motivated person could in fact find out exactly how I voted.
They do this despite my patiently explaining to them the problem I have with them doing it.
NB I do not consider myself important enough to sufficiently motivate someone to find out my vote besides they could always try asking me :D
Yes- but given your used ballot paper, searching though the marked-up electoral rolls is an onerous task; likewise given the rolls (and hence you ballot paper number), searching though a giant pile of ballots for yours is also onerous. I think that if everything remains paper-based, your voting choice remains pretty safe, unless you are specifically targeted.
Ah, the wisdom of Solomon. Two men were accused of theft. Knowing that the punishment would be the cutting off of their hands, both men were terrified. Only one had committed the crime, but it was impossible to say which it was and neither would confess, both proclaimed innocence. Solomon was asked to intercede in the case, and he had his court wizard enchant two sticks of equal length such that they would grow a full inch overnight when in the presence of a thief.
In the morning, the men were fetched from their cells and the sticks were compared. Solomon declared that he had knew who the thief was so the sentence was carried out. Solomon knew the guilty man was the one with a stick an inch SHORTER than the other. Only one person knew who was guilty, the thief themselves, and in fear of the punishment they had seen the stick growing and had broken an inch off to avoid their fate. The honest man knew he had nothing to fear so left the stick alone.
So really Storm does not need to know who voted which way. The voter alone knows which way they voted, and that is enough. The mere threat of losing one's livelihood may be enough to influence a decision, subconsciously or consciously. Rationality doesn't come into it. Sticks do not grow an inch overnight, bosses do not know which way an individual staff member voted - this does not matter.
Did I get the attribution wrong? I know that there's a wisdom of Solomon tale about the woman with two babies. Maybe he was very, very wise and was brought in to judge many disputes. Just like Anna, the Skyr yoghurt woman.
---EDIT---
I did get the attribution wrong. The story of the thief and the stick was the wisdom of Birbal. I'm sure someone told me it was Solomon. Ah well. The principle is the same.
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I wrote about this following the EU Referendum - http://blog.mrdrem.me.uk/2016/06/how-voting-works-from-other-side-of.html
TL:DR? Yes, your vote can be tracked, but only within certain timescales, and only with a court order (or some electoral services employee doing a shed load of work on the quiet, with no-one else noticing, or a load of people being in on it, at which point see https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/26/secret-success-equations-give-calculations-for-keeping-conspiracies-quiet - Although I suspect that less than the critical 125 people would know enough of how the data was gained)
I'm planning on writing something up about the counting process shortly...
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Yes- but given your used ballot paper, searching though the marked-up electoral rolls is an onerous task; likewise given the rolls (and hence you ballot paper number), searching though a giant pile of ballots for yours is also onerous.
It is about as onerous as running the electoral rolls and ballot papers through a scanner, followed by OCR and full-text search. Certainly something a single private individual of average means would be able to either do herself, or pay for.
So, in fact not onerous at all - and I would be very surprised if this is not already done as a matter of course by some obscure government department. Because terrorists.
And how would "a single private individual of average means" get their hands on an entire set of ballot papers? (And also on the ballot records, which are probably stored entirely separately once the polls close.)They are rather well guarded at all times, and even for a national election, they are run by local councils, not by central gov.
Records are kept secret according to Electoral Commission
"The following documentation is not available for public inspection, except by court order:
• ballot papers
• completed corresponding number lists
• certificates of employment on duty on polling day
These documents can only be accessed if the High Court or a county court in England and Wales, or the Court of Session or a sheriff in Scotland, is satisfied by evidence on oath that access is required for one of the following reasons:
• for instituting or maintaining a prosecution for an offence in relation to ballot papers
• for the purpose of an election petition
Access can also be ordered by the House of Commons or by an election court."
from "Access, supply and inspection of election documents after a UK Parliamentary election"
And how would "a single private individual of average means" get their hands on an entire set of ballot papers?
That's a separate issue. My comment was only intended to state the obvious: modern technology makes correlating ballot papers and electoral rolls, which used to be a formidable challenge when the system was designed, a fairly trivial and cheap exercise the moment you can access the records. So realistically, the only thing which stands between an inquisitive person or government department and the knowledge of how you (and everybody else in the same district) voted is a court order.
There is a close analogy here with wiretaps and mail interception: when listening to your conversations and tracking your calls required a three-person crew in a white van parked on the street outside your house, it was an expensive tool which could only be used on a small number of targets and in relatively serious cases. If on the other hand getting the itemized list of the people you called requires couple keystrokes, and slurping all of your conversations verbatim is not that much harder, it will be used routinely, and for cases which are clearly frivolous. It may still technically require a court order, but this does not appear to be such a high bar anymore - especially if you invoke the right scare words, or shop for a friendly judge.
Perhaps it is time to redesign the system a little, to put more emphasis on keeping voters' intentions private, and making the pervasive snooping by the government a little harder?
I won't be holding my breath waiting for it to happen, though.
"Because terrorists", You have a terrorist party?.
PS. keep the paper ballots. Where I live we have to prove identity with a drivers licence or passport or ID card and the name on the roll is marked. I don't really understand why that is such a problem in some countries. Nor do I have to do anything in advance and the ballot is not numbered just stamped. The USA is of course a totally different story for many reasons.
>It is about as onerous as running the electoral rolls and ballot papers through a scanner, followed by OCR and full-text search.
That would be running ~50,000 folded sheets of paper through a scanner (and re-loading every 20 sheets, as the scanner clogged up).
It's easier to work from a set of ballots and then search the register - scopes of ballot numbers per polling station narrow the search space. But finding out who a particular person voted for requires a full search of all the ballots. AFAIK it's a facility that's only been used to determine who was voting Communist in the 50s/60s.
They do this despite my patiently explaining to them the problem I have with them doing it.
I believe it's required by law, and can be used to discount votes when a) there's been personation and b) the result was close enough that individual votes could matter.
As for the ballot being secret, it's secret from Joe Bloggs, but not necessarily the state. I don't know whether it still happens, but back in the 60s and 70s observers at counts reported seeing the bundles of votes for the Communist Party (and similar far left parties) being handed to known police officers who were thought to be Special Branch.
Finding out who someone voted for is hard, finding out who voted for someone is a lot easier.
They write down the ballot numbers so that if there is a legal challenge, they can do a thorough check. For example, if someone comes in and is told they have already voted, the ballot papers of the impersonators can be removed. Obviously they don't do that unless there is a lot of impersonation. There are other kinds of fraud where a matching number check is needed, although most would be picked up at the verification count.
After a time to allow for legal challenges, the ballot papers are destroyed.
"We have a secret ballot"
I agree with Bloke's comment: no we don't. Your vote can be tracked. I also object at out local polling station and get blank looks. Not to mention the ***ers outside the station asking for my name - I've been impolite to them in the past.
During my first election here in the UK after moving from Oz, I was gobsmacked at the obvious faults in the voting system:
- No secret ballot
- Voting on a Thursday? wtf? Do it on a f'n Saturday when we've all got a bit of extra time.
- Voting ONLY at ONE polling booth? What???? Back in Oz I could walk into any polling booth across the country on the day and vote. FFS. Here it seems too hard to even be able to do this in the same city.
The latter two seem to me to be a deliberate effort to stop people voting.
" Not to mention the ***ers outside the station asking for my name - I've been impolite to them in the past"
Those will either be political party volunteers asking on your way in who are trying to find out if those directly canvassed have turned up to vote yet. Or, if on way out, carrying out an exit poll so the majority of us can go to bed with a fair idea of how the election turned out.
Either way, no need to be a ****er to them.
You _don't_ actually have a secret vote. Ballots are numbered*) and can be linked to the voter**) (at least it used to be like that). Now, it may be difficult for Storm to check but still.
*) The explanation I heard was it is to prevent electoral fraud by fake ballots. Did stop the Labour postal ballot cheating, did it?
**) Of course this was only done for votes for the extremist parties, by MI5, to keep the pedoterrorists safe.
They might snoop on the staff social media accounts, to see if they've been posting anything for one party or another. Or listen in on water cooler conversations. Some people don't mind discussing their voting preference if they don't think it would cause any problems in their immediate environment.
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The ceo in question was one of two shareholders (his wife being the other) to share in a £2 million plus dividend last year. His 10% tax rate makes me doubt that this was a joke, imagine if that nice little loophole was shut and he had to pay employment tax rates when paid by his company..
(Cue wails of outrage from contractors who also think they're above employment taxation... When i was contracting it was the increased daily rate that appealed, not the chance to dodge the taxman.)
Sabroni,
a question for you, why shouldn't folk who have presumably worked there derrieres off earn £x out of a company that they may have built from scratch, whilst potentially not having a f'ing clue how to pay some of the bills in Y months time??
It's called taking risks matey, and most people FAIL, which means some succeed.
The politics of envy perchance???
Ooi how many people does the current business you setup employ?
The above aside, the dickhead in question does sound like a pillock of the first order...
Cheers,
Jay
The people at the top of a business earn more money. I absolutely agree that it's the way it should be. I don't agree that they should receive preferential tax treatment because they earn £11,500 in "Salary" and £1,000,000 in "Dividends".
The MD of Storm should be prosecuted for failing to understand what redundancy is, ie you can't make someone redundant because you don't agree with their political viewpoint.
I'm not envious of "successful people", i know what they give up to get success and i'm not prepared to focus on money that much. I don't believe that when you earn more the percentage of your income that's taxed should be higher, you pay more tax because you earn more, but it should be a fixed percentage. I do believe that everyone should contribute according to their means and i know paying yourself through dividends is just a way of avoiding that obligation.
If you make a million you should pay yourself a million and be taxed on income of a million. It's not tricky.
(And making tons of cash isn't really what i'd class as being successful, seems like a pretty shallow target for a lifetime...)
No, the taxation should be progressive (within limits) for so many reasons. Money makes more money and it's always cheaper to have money, buying in bulk and so forth. People short of money always lose in comparison. You always know who is out for the fixed percentage.
An ever increasing wealth gap is not good at all.
Dominion,
you haven't quite thought this one through have you matey???
So you think that people who own a bit of a company (via their shareholdings) should pay more tax.
So what happens to companies or organisations (such as pension funds) that own shares in other companies, should they be paying more tax as well??
Jay.
No "matey", they don't pay "more tax" they pay tax at the same rate as everyone else pays tax, but on the dividends from their shareholdings. If they sell the shares then they pay tax on the profit. At the same rate. And if the investment drops in value then you don't claim the loss back against other tax paid. That's already being abused by scam merchants too much.
As for pensions, they're nothing more than a ponzi scheme and should be outlawed.
So are you suggesting that he only paid 10% tax on a dividend of lets say £1 million?
Seems a tad unlikely, the old 10% rate on dividends only applied to a basic rate tax payer. Once you exceed the basic rate (which a £1 mill + dividend would do pretty easily) then it gets taxed at progressively higher rates, depending on which band you end up in.
Further details available here:
http://www.itcontracting.com/new-dividend-tax-april-2016/
Well I appreciate both the daily rate (short term contracts - often only a few day but extremely well paid) and the fact that I can take my expenses (considerable) off my tax bill - both reasonable. I did recently refuse (it was subsequently re-offered) on a short government analytics contract where they wanted to put my on IR35 for 7 working days.
@sabroni
How would he and his wife pay just 10% on a dividend of 1M each?
Dividends are paid from profit by the Ltd, so 20% Corporation Tax will have been paid before it can be a distributed as a dividend.
When the dividend is paid out, there is a 5K allowance, but after that a 7.5% dividend tax rate applies to the rest, and any amount above about 40K (presuming they have no salary at all) will still be hit for higher rate income tax as well.
Unless you know otherwise? (In which case please explain.)
“Labour voters will be made redundant first if Labour do win and things slow down.”
He would have an interesting time at the tribunal.
Of course the slowdown most of us are facing now is entirely due to Tory party in-fighting over Europe. I wonder if he plans to preferentially sack Brexit voters too?
as a current employee, its annoying for me to read, so called smart people, not reading between the lines ! The media twisted the story to try and make it interesting. it WAS office banter, taken out of context. shame they could not print the email in full, then people could see for themselves it was banter.
Lastly, EVEN if he wanted us to vote for XYZ, how on earth would he police, 120+ employees to confirm exactly which box they did tick ?! The story is as stupid as the people who believed it !
Ah well, the media will be back to covering the z list celebs we have in the country now anyway, so everyone can move on !
I think I can guess who you are, this doesn't surprise me from a company that doesn't even bother to give a reason to terminate contracts. A place that sends round petty emails complaining if you walk in the door ONLY two minutes BEFORE your shift starts. And of course you can guess the rest.
> The media twisted the story to try and make it interesting. it WAS office banter, taken out of context. shame they could not print the email in full, then people could see for themselves it was banter.
Presumably you received a copy, and could in fact post it to support your argument?
> Lastly, EVEN if he wanted us to vote for XYZ, how on earth would he police, 120+ employees to confirm exactly which box they did tick ?!
He doesn't actually need to police it. That's the thing with threats, it's the chance that you could follow through that tends to influence people. He may not be able to police it, but once the threat has been made, if you need your job to support your family/pay the mortgage, are you going to take that risk?
There are plenty of examples in history of people changing their behaviour on the offchance that those in power might find out (despite the odds being low), it's an effective mechanism.
"Presumably you received a copy, and could in fact post it to support your argument?"
of course I received a copy. I wont re post it, as don't want people to "doctor" it as the original was.
As I said, im just an employee of the company, no hidden agendas, just want to make it clear from my point of view, it was banter, and the email that has had certain parts published only, was clearly in good humour. You will just have to take my word for that. If not, no drama, and maybe you do believe everything you read published by the media !
Allow me to post where you fear to Ctrl+V, my dear Guv'nor...
Hi Everyone, So its election day and I hope you all exercise your right to elect your chosen candidate/partyJust a heads up though, VOTE CONSERVATIVE if you believe in free enterprise and progression without being taxed out of the game.
Theresa May is not the perfect PM but a far better option for dealing with the challenges this country faces ahead than Corbyn.
Brexit negotations start in less than two weeks which will affect us all, Security and the ECONOMY needs a strong hand and Corbyn will be a nightmare.
He resents those making good money, wants to hike corporation tax up by 7% immediately, hike higher rate tax payers by another 5%, bring far more people into the 40% tax bracket (and there are a lot of you here at Storm) borrow billions which at some point has to be paid back and will generally send us backwards.
If by any chance Labour win, we’ll have to re-think a few things here at the company so if you value your job and want to hold onto your hard earned money vote Conservative.
Labour voters will be made redundant first if Labour do win and things slow down……….
Anyway, just sharing my personal thoughts with you
Feel free to vote for whoever you want but I have said my piece
JB
Banter? nonsense. Anyone who has worked there & seen the behaviour of the MD knows the way this story goes. check your email for the day before Brexit & see if a similar email was sent out? I guess that would be just "Banter" too? A simple data subject access request would be interesting. Looking forward to watching the story develop.
Too many do not do this and vote for the rosette.
There is also a lot of friction between Remainers and Brexiteers, one lot very annoyed and the others gloating.
That referendum last year split the country more than anything before.
I have noticed a huge change in voting intentions, the Conservatives has lost a lot of their natural support, but gained some ex Ukipper support.
Labour have picked up a lot of floating and first timers.
Lib Dems, Greens again picked up some floaters.
But the people voting for party X are often different to the previous election.
I must admit I did not find the email as posted to be humorous in wording. Perhaps an emoji might have made the humour more evident. The original sender of the email should post a copy of it to the Electoral Commission to see if they laugh . There is a PDF available from them which (paraphrased ) states that a person who inflicts or threatens to inflict injury damage or harm in order to prevent someone from freely casting their vote is guilty of exerting undue influence which is prohibited .
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