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More from @edwinhayward

Edwin Hayward

@edwinhayward

Oct 21, 2024

Some more experiments with AI music generation. See what you think...

(One video per tweet. Each includes a static image with the song as soundtrack. Links to Youtube versions at end of thread, together with a rundown of the tools I used to produce them.)

1. Humanity Ascendant

Tomorrow's Tomorrow

Technological Progress

Read 5 tweets

Edwin Hayward

@edwinhayward

Oct 20, 2024

Perhaps it's unworkable, but this feels like it would be a fair tax system...

1) Set the tax free allowance so that it is the same as annualised minimum wage, and raise it every year in line with inflation. Do the same for NI thresholds. So someone on exactly the minimum wage will never pay tax/NI. If it's really meant to be the "minimum" people need to live on, then let them keep all of it.

2) No clawbacks of the tax free allowance no matter your income level. Everyone gets the same untaxed band.

3) Eliminate all 100%+ tax situations. Work should always pay, regardless of the combination of salary and benefits you're receiving. Set a maximum (say 75% combined for tax + NI) and fiddle with the tax system so there are no cliff edges that create effective tax rates above that 75%. In other words, if your income from any source increases by £1, you should never gain less than 25p.

4) Tax every source of income exactly the same. EVERYTHING falls under the same regime - salary, dividends, capital gains, etc. - with no loopholes or exceptions. (If expensive tax lawyers are left twiddling their thumbs, you know the revised system is working.)

5) Adjust all the rest of the income tax and national insurance bands above the sacrosanct "no tax/no NI" lowest band to allow for 1) to 4). This will almost certainly require more tax bands and more granularity.

Net result:
- There's a sense of basic fairness across society: everyone earning at or over the annualised minimum wage (regardless of the source of the money) gets to keep at least the annualised minimum wage component of their total income.
- Work always pays, period.
- There's no point at all in trying to optimise how you make money or game the system because all sources of income are taxed exactly the same

Ok, over to you. What do you think? Be gentle, please. It may well be a naive plan, but it's a naive well-intentioned plan.

Added:

I also believe that NI should be eliminated and there should be just one combined tax.

But that's not necessary for anything I've outlined above - it just makes things simpler, especially when you're taxing ALL income from ALL sources the same - so I left it out.

Added: Minimum wage is about £20,500 for a 48-week year of 40-hour weeks.

Removing both the income tax and the NI from that would leave over £2,200 more in the employee's pocket.

(MSE income tax calculator below.)

Read 4 tweets

Edwin Hayward

@edwinhayward

Oct 11, 2024

THREAD

As Labour are coming up to 100 days in power, it's good to ponder why their honeymoon was so short, and why they appear to be getting a torrid time from media outlets all across the political spectrum.

I've illustrated what I believe is happening. More below...

1/4

The average person's expectations of the Tories was VERY low. Yet they underperformed even that low bar.

On the other hand, people had high hopes of Labour. The gap between such stellar expectations and reality is wider than on the Tory side - even though Labour are better.

2/4

Dashed hopes can be a terrible thing. Especially after 14 years of despair. So it's hardly surprising that there has been a good deal of negative reaction and pushback.

Labour urgently need to improve their various stances to come much closer to what people expect of them.

3/4

Read 4 tweets

Edwin Hayward

@edwinhayward

Aug 12, 2024

This is what Flux-AI gave me in response to the prompt: "The most quintessentially English scene possible".

Here is Dall-E-3's attempt.

(Same prompt. I'm not picking and choosing. I gave each AI just one shot at it.)

And here's SD3-Turbo's attempt.

Read 5 tweets

Edwin Hayward

@edwinhayward

Jul 7, 2024

THREAD: The BBC have been having an absolute shocker the last couple of days.

Let's concentrate on 3 specific examples.

Example 1: Laura Kuenssberg's diabolic introduction to her interview with Ed Davey.

No spoilers. Wait until the end. It's worth it.

Example 2: The case of the quietly changed headline.

Original one (left)

Changed version a few hours later (right).

Remember, the one on the left is the one most of the BBC News website visitors will have been exposed to. web.archive.org/web/2024070606…
web.archive.org/web/2024070622…

Example 3: Eye-popping headline and bizarrely framed article about the Far Right's failure to meet expectations in France's election.

Objectivity be damned.
archive.ph/kkQx5

Read 4 tweets

Edwin Hayward

@edwinhayward

Jul 2, 2024

This is not the election for protest votes.

For the first time, we could demote the Tories to third. Winning fewer seats than the LibDems would wipe them out as a political force.

Polls suggest this is within reach, but we need tactical voting to get us over the line.

1/12

Our choice is stark:

5 long years of the Tories in Opposition, pushing a hate-filled agenda of culture wars and immigrant-bashing.

Or the LibDems in Opposition, holding Labour to account on the issues that matter, with the Tories fuming, impotent, on the back benches.

2/12

If the Tories are in Opposition as the 2nd largest party, they get:
- 6 questions a week at PMQs
- Guaranteed coverage from media outlets with "due impartiality" requirements
- 17 Opposition Days to push their agenda and hold votes
- Almost £1 million in extra Short Money

3/12

Read 12 tweets

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