Preferential Voting

I see that the Labour Party used Preferential Voting in their quest to select a New Party Leader.
Preferential Voting method a.ka. as the instant-runoff voting (IRV), or the "alternative vote"  which uses voters' preferences to simulate an elimination runoff election without multiple voting events.
As the votes are tallied, the option with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. In successive rounds of counting, the next preferred choice still available from each eliminated ballot is transferred to candidates not yet eliminated.
The least preferred option is eliminated in each round of counting until there is a majority winner, with all ballots being considered in every round of counting.
Why then do they then insist upon a First Past The Post voting System in a General Election?

Your Safety and your Children’s Safety

The holiday season in Spain is over, however, what struck me most was how people ignored safety either of themselves or their children.

Parasailing from the Beach looks cool, however, its a whole lot different when a 16 stone bloke gets strapped in. Did you check the knots? Knots? Surely you mean harness straps and buckles. Landing? Oh my good I am doing 20 miles an hour and my 15 minutes are up, what did the Spanish guy say? Where’s my crash hat? Is that the sea coming up? Boom! Splash!

It is a bit funny to see all this from the beach bar. Most come back laughing and trying to ignore the pain of splash down or torn ligaments. Insured? I don’t think so, not on most holiday insurance!

And as for letting the kids hire a scooter, its laughable. Sure you can prove he is 16, it says so on his passport. Insurance, well the bloke said so in all those forms I signed in Spanish. Crash hat was extra and it more or less fits. Shoes, eh, well don’t flip flop count? And  am sure that the T shirt and shorts will protect him if he comes off. And I told him no passengers.

Other road user? Spanish drivers, well I told him just the quite roads and no more than 30 mph, what’s that in kph? 50? 60? Oh well I am sure he will be OK.

The local hospital are full of people who normally take care in the UK but for some reason all safety thoughts go out of their head when on holiday.

Did I also mention banana boats? Ski Jets? Kayaks? Peddalos?

183 day rule

If you spend more than 183 days in Spain during one calendar year, you become liable for Spanish taxes whether or not you take out a formal residence permit (Residencia).
These days do not have to be consecutive. You do not become resident for tax purposes until the morning of the 184th day. Temporary absences from Spain are ignored for the purpose of the 183-day rule unless it can be proved that the individual is habitually resident in another country for more than 183 days in a calendar year.
This is not negotiable.
If you still pay taxes, think you live in the UK, have all your family there, etc. It does not matter. You still have to pay Spanish taxes and are considered a resident in Spain.
The good news is that you don’t have to pay UK taxes, if you do, then that is your fault. Paying taxes in the UK or any other country does not exclude you from paying Spanish taxes if you are resident for 183 days in a year.
Not a Spanish Tax year is the same as a calendar year. 1st January to the 31 December.

GUARDIA CIVIL OFFICERS TO ISSUE MORE FINES

Traffic police in Spain are starting to be evaluated based on the number of tickets they issue. According to the Civil Guard’s transit security division, traffic cops will be given points for each infraction they cite. For example, issuing speeding tickets could earn the officer two points while four points will be given if the officer issues the driver a citation for transporting prohibited materials or too many passengers.

All alcohol-related infractions will be worth nine points, the Civil Guard said in a statement. If they don’t reach a set number of points they will have their salary reduced further!

Spanish Will

Living in Spain as an ex-pat we obviously have assets in that country, a villa, a car, bank accounts etc.
So it came to pass that we needed to explore what happens if either of us dies or we both die. This came a more serious problem after my uncle died recently and I was the executor of his will. It sparked us into life. The question was, what happens in Spain?
We did not need to see a solicitor in Spain, we had to see an accountant who helped us draw up the wills and help avoid taxes (an absolute must for the Lady of the Villa who hates paying anymore taxes than she has too!).
Once the will was drawn up it had to be notarised by a Spanish Notary, then legally filled with us and the accountant holding copies. All very straight forward, except any beneficiary of the will has to have a Spanish NIE number. This is the equivalent of our National Insurance Number (the one you get at birth but can never remember).
So our children will have to apply for one if they ever want a share of our Spanish assets.

Spanish Unemployment

Spain's unemployment rate has hit 20% for the first time in nearly 13 years, official figures have shown. There were 4,612,700 people unemployed in the country at the end of March, the national statistics agency INE said.
Spain's jobless rate has risen sharply during the economic downturn and is the highest in the eurozone.
Meanwhile, official European Union (EU) figures showed that the eurozone unemployment rate remained unchanged at 10% in March.
The unemployment figures could be higher if it were not for the unemployment laws which give workers a minimum of 25 weeks pay for every year worked up to a maximum of 52 weeks. This may explain why more companies are going into bankruptcy.

Spanish Council Business

As part of the duties of being on the committee of the urbanisation we live on, is making sure that the council know about problems in and around the urbanisation.
This mostly covers, lighting, road maintenance, rubbish collection etc. In the recent past all this has taken is a trip down to the Town Hall and a chat in part Spanish, part English with the appropriate department and usually, after two trips, the work is completed.
Now things have changed. As part of the Spanish austerity measures the council staff have had a 5% reduction in salary. Harsh but…. Now the staff are fighting back, instead of talking and getting things done a form has too be completed in Spanish for every work item. Even if the work is to be done on a regular basis.
Ok if you are Spanish but not if you are English, German, French etc. It is costing the urbanisation each time to have the form completed in Spanish. We keep a copy each time as the work at the moment is never ever done!
W have a season ticket for each department at the minute!

Happy retirement- but at what age?

The British Government have announced that they would end the “discrimination” of the Default Retirement Age, which allows companies to force staff out as soon as they turn 65.  
However, is in not true that older workers who do stay in their posts beyond 65 may also find themselves facing claims that they are not up to the job any more. It could lead to more employment tribunal claims from staff who believe they were sacked for being too old.
The Default Retirement Age has been challenged repeatedly in the courts by campaigners who believe it is unfair to experienced workers who may have no problems carrying out their jobs and may want to keep earning.
Government said the move is one of several being taken to help people stay in work as they live longer lives. Separately, the state pension age is due to rise to 66 as soon as 2016.
A default retirement age helps people think and plan about when it is right to retire. In certain jobs, especially physically demanding ones, working beyond 65 is not going to be possible for everyone.
We retired “early”, because we planned it that way and we enjoy our life in retirement. Some people, the minority in my opinion want to carry on regardless of age, thinking that they are immortal and their decision processes are infallible. They are causing the problem and the government are jumping on the bandwagon to help reduce their pension burden.
Can you really see Social workers at 70 helping teenagers? Could the teenagers relate to them? No way.
70 year old police on the beat? You have to take your test again at 70!
Heavy lifting jobs at 70? Laughable to most. Collecting Job seekers allowance at 65? A joke.
Its all about baby boomers, we paid for our mums and dads government pensions, there is no one to pay ours, so lets abandon it. Work until you die then they dont have to pay!

Dangerous on the Road

This is a Spanish taxi. The most dangerous thing on the road in  Spain today. They are always white with lots of advertisements on the paintwork.

The cars themselves are usually well maintained and clean with the drivers taking great care of the interior and exterior, with the local councils doing there bit to ensure that they are safe on the road and fully insured.

But beware, the drivers have no need to pass any test other than the normal driving test. Once they get in the taxi they become Alonso, not Xabi Alonso the footballer but Alonso the Formula 1 driver, you know the one that does not look in the mirror and thinks he is the only one on the track.

They only know one speed, how fast can this cab go! Signals – no chance.  

Knutsford, Cheshire

THE LEGH ARMS on LEGH ROAD in KNUTSFORD CHESHIRE



 Although I am a Scouser, I and the Lady of the Villa spent most of our time in the UK and in Knutsford Cheshire. We actually lived in Legh Road in Knutsford which is why this article in the local press caught my eye.

"A LANDSCAPING firm has been fined £10,000 after pleading guilty to destroying more than 20 protected trees in the Legh Road conservation area. A subsequent investigation by the authority’s tree officer found that protected species including oak, scots pine, yew and holly had been cut down and uprooted.
Other trees, including a yew, had been pruned without permission and the roots of a mature beech, holly and sycamore were damaged during the landscaping works in the autumn of last year."

We had a tree in the centre of our drive which we had attempted to have removed. No way would the council move on this. If I had had it chopped down how much would I have been fined for one tree?

Alcohol Limits

I don’t usually get up early at the weekends, however, we got up early on a Saturday to go on a coach trip. Being first on we were asked to sit right at the front, behind the driver. We were on  one of the modern coaches with a huge window at the front easily 6 feet by 10 feet, so we had a good view of the road ahead.
After picking up some more trippers and going down the equivalent of an A road, ahead we noticed some police cars slowing traffic down and stopping at random some cars. As we approached we slowed down and so a sign in Spanish which translated said “Alcohol Check”.
The police we breathalysing the stopped motorists. I had only seen this done in Australia. Now its starting in Spain. The Spanish coach driver told us that its been this way for years but the police were using it more and more especially after holidays and football matches!

BP and Union Carbide

BP has been coming under some extraordinary pressure from the USA recently. To some it is well deserved, after all they have created the greatest ecological disaster the US has ever experienced. The US president has put the blame on BP and in particular Tony Haywood BP’s chief executive and Obama will ensure that they pay for the clean up and any compensation, which experts say will run into Billions and may bankrupt one of Britain's biggest companies.
Seems on the face of it quite fair.
However, if you consider the fate of Union Carbide the US company that caused the deaths of over 3,000 people in India in 1984 (with some estimates putting the death toll at 25,000.
The then Union Carbide boss Warren Anderson was indicted but skipped his bail and resides in the USA. India have been refused permission to extradite him. The company itself paid £313 million in “full and final” settlement for this disaster. On average each victim received only £350 each.
Seems on the face of it unfair.

One rule for the rich debtors one for the poor

Reading an article in this weeks Sunday Times provoked a thought. The article says that Sameer Al Ansari has resigned from Dubai International Capital (DIC). Not in itself remarkable as DIC owe £1.7 billion to banks and want to have a three month extension to a loan of £0.8 billion due this month.

Now forgive me, but, is this the same Dubai that puts people in jail if they owe money to a bank or cant pay back a loan?
One rule for the rich debtors one rule for the poor.

Laws must go!

I would have thought the minimum that should happen is that he is SACKED from his role of Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Mr Laws last night apologised, so what. Any person who fiddled their expenses would be sacked as a minimum, in some cases prosecuted!
Laws, a millionaire former investment banker, had claimed up to £950 a month for five years to rent a room in two properties owned by Mr Lundie a person he had a ‘relationship with’ for nine years.
Parliamentary rules prohibit the payment of money claimed as expenses to a partner. The word partner is what Laws is hanging on to in the hope of keeping his job. “We had separate bank accounts and different social lives” he said. Come off it you have been together for 9 years living in  two homes one you helped get a mortgage. The DHSS would call that a partnership!
Go. Be sacked.
Under the terms of the agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Laws cannot be sacked without Nick Clegg’s consent which should be a no brainer. Here we have a Liberal Democrat, the party that took the moral high ground on the expenses issue while it was taking place, on the fiddle.
Between 2004 and 2007, Mr Laws claimed between £700 and £950 a month to sub-let a room in a flat in Kennington, south London which was owned by Mr Lundie. The Inland Revenue should be investigating whether Mr Lundie put this in his tax form each year.
Sack one, prosecute the other if not put on his tax form.  Its all a no brainer.

Smoking Ban in Spain: Will It Ever Happen?

The proposed smoking ban in Spain has been put back until 2011, raising some doubts over whether it will ever happen at all.
With most countries in Western Europe having brought in smoking ban several years ago, Spain stalled and put in place some half-baked legislation in the hope that that would see off any laws being imposed from on high by the European Union.
Since late 2005, small bars and cafes in Spain have been in the curious position of being allowed to choose whether to permit smoking not. Unsurprisingly (as most bar staff and their patrons smoke), they chose to allow it. Larger establishments were, in theory, asked to fit an expensive ventilated partition. Most ignored it, including Madrid airport.
Realising that the current system was doing nothing to decrease the amount of smoking in public places in Spain, the government threatened to completely ban lighting up in bars and cafes in 2010. But the law has been creeping further and further back - first until the summer and now until 2011.

Exchange Plates Part 2 - Forms and Taxes

Having got through the first part of the exchange of license plates ourselves we bottled it on the subsequent parts. The amount of forms and the number of separtments together with our basic Spanish was too much for us and we had a company do it for us.
It only took ten days for them to do it and the cost was as follows:

• Trafico (1st Registration Fee) - 115.38    
• Plates                                    -   24.00
• Import Tax                            - 383.50
• Suma (Road Fund Tax)         -    79.65
• Company Charge                  -    96.00

Total 698.53. This together with the ITV (MOT) charges (206.35) brought the whole cost to 907.88 euros. Not bad.           

Exchange Plates Part One – The ITV station

We need to change the Rover 75 that we brought from the UK to Spanish plates.
Having researched the process, off we went bright and early, to the first  stop, the ITV station.

ITV stands for “Inspeccion Technica de Vehiculos” or MOT to UK readers. We got there with all our technical details on the car, proof of ownership and our money. We were sent home! I also needed my NIE (Spanish National Insurance Number) and my Padron (Registration for my Spanish Region).  Arriving home  at the time we thought we would but without the ITV document we decided to go later on in the day with all of my Spanish documents and all the cars documents, oh, and our money.
Arriving after the siesta we found a queue of 10 cars in front of us, which did not matter as we had to go into the office with all our documents. After much photo copying, transfer of numbers and 200 euros we had completed the office part. We now had the ITV to do.
It was a bit like a production line but with one inspector doing the car. The car was first checked for all the lights working, emissions, wipers, horn and a cross check on all the documents to the vehicles VIN plates in the engine compartment to ensure that everything matched.
Moving on to the next station the brakes front, rear and hand were checked and at the third and last station the steering, suspension and tracking.
All was well, it passed. At no time were the tyres checked!
We went into the office and were given a pass certificate and a sticker for the windscreen indicating a pass! The whole thing took just over an hour but we had to return the next day for the main documentation and the all important equivalent of a Spanish Log Book for the car.
After this it is on  to the Traffico Department to have the car registered in my name and licence plates allocated and finally to the SUMA (Tax) Department to pay the import tax and the road tax.

Resident in Spain

We have been in Spain a couple of years now and we both have NIE numbers (National Insurance numbers) that were required so that we could purchase a villa and open a bank account to be ‘officially in Spain (despite being an EEC resident) takes more. We needed to become fully resident.
We found a English/Spanish translator (Mark from Liverpool) previously when Theresa had her handbag stolen, and from conversations with him we knew we had other documents to be obtained.
We needed a Residentia. This is an official document allowing us to reside in Spain. Mark also said that having got our residentia we could get a Padron each. A padron is the English equivalent of the Electoral role and means we can vote, but more importantly get us a SIP card. The SIP card allows us access to the Spanish NHS. (I hope you are following this, because it gets more complicated).
So we started off, with Marks help, in getting a residential. Mark got the forms and filled them in and we trooped off to our Area Administration Offices to get registered. Taking our forms, our passports, our NIE, copies of the house deeds (all 72 pages) and 80 Euros each. Having got there and queued in the English tradition (there is no Spanish one and when you add the Germans, Rumanians and Russians into the mix, please imagine the bedlam).
Anyway after waiting for 2 hours we got to the desk had the forms scrutinised and stamped we received our residential. Total time including travel, parking and waiting time 4 hours.
The next day The Lady of the Villa and I went of to the local town hall to get our Padron. Carrying our Residentia, copy of our NIE’s and copy of the deeds to the house (yes all 72 pages). While waiting we looked at the residentia and found that Theresa was living at no 72 Calle (Street) Ebro while I was at no 19 (She was correct). This we thought was going to be a problem at the desk.
It was not. The lady took out a large scale map and asked us to point to our plot. We did and she produced our Padrons (after scrutiny of our documents). The Padron said we lived at no 72 Calle Guardiana! Although we had been told by the builders we lived on Ebro we don’t. (Please remember that all the documents at our Area Administration Offices had stated our address as Ebro (as we thought it was) - Bugger.
Never mind, we went off to the local Hospital to queue again for our SIP cards, got to the front with our Padrons and explained what we wanted and were promptly asked for our UK E111 cards, which by sheer luck we had, so we got our SIP cards. They last 6 months and we have to go back and renew them every 6 months just like the Spaniards do. Weird.
A couple of days later we got in touch with Mark  and when I explained to him all the address problems, he just laughed, he had seen it before. He could fix all the documentation more or less online once the documents as they stood were on file which could take 3 to 6 months.
Anyway we are now fully registered in Spain. Next we are off to the Tax offices to sort out our Spanish Tax.

Urbanisation AGM

We recently held our AGM for the Urbanisation. Here is a list of items discussed.

1. Accounts for 2009 – 2010
2. Decision about Unpaid Fees
3. Budget for 2010 – 2011
4. Repairs and Improvements for the New Financial Year
5. Renewal of Committee Members
6. Any Other Business
• The parking on the internal road.
• Rental Properties
• Colour of Awnings.
• Repainting of the properties
• Palm Trees around Pool
• Committee activities.

All in all a mixed bunch but not, i feel, that different from other Spanish Urbanisation’s AGM’s. As you can imagine a lot of time was spent on community fees and debtors (no debtors were in attendance, but they will receive the AGM minutes). The next item that took time, surprisingly, was the colour of awnings. So much time we had to leave it for a ‘special meeting’ in the summer. Car parking was next.
All the committee decided to stand for another year, including myself, and we were voted back in without opposition.

So they Win Again and Again

Another toothless organisation, there to help the consumer fails. How after three years work costing countless amounts of taxpayers money can this happen…..

A three-year investigation into UK bank charges on overdrawn customers ended with a whimper after the UK. Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it will leave it to banks to improve their practices.
The backing down over the issue comes after the UK. High Court's surprise ruling in November that said the OFT didn't have the power to decide if the charges were unfair or not under existing consumer protection rules, leaving the consumer protection agency toothless to enforce any potential restrictions on the charges.
However, the OFT could have gone on to seek new legislation. It didn’t. The Financial Services Consumer Panel, an independent statutory body that works with financial markets regulator the Financial Services Authority on consumer issues, said the OFT's stance was "too weak, and will take too long to deliver real improvements." "Many customers, particularly the most vulnerable, continue to pay excessive bank charges and this situation has not been effectively resolved," it said.
The November court case was seen as a victory for banks and a blow to consumer groups who wanted the charges scaled back. However, if the banks had lost the ruling and were forced to lower their charges, the expectation was that the lost income would be recouped through other charges, such as a standard monthly fee on all checking accounts.
So the banks win again and again! And we the consumer lose twice, once helping them out of the “banking crisis and secondly when we go overdrawn. Did we the taxpayers charge them when they went overdrawn? No we lent them money.