# Hoo flippin' Rah !!



## trophywench (Mar 7, 2020)

My sister and I campaigned/signed petitions, whatever we could do to support this getting on for 50 years ago - before I was diagnosed with diabetes.  The taxation class then was the same as 'luxury goods'.  (may have been 'purchase tax' back then)  Would be virtually impossible to choose anything less of a ruddy luxury, chunter chunter.

Loath as I am to admit it - yes there are indeed some advantages to leaving the EU !



			Budget 2020: Tampon tax to be scrapped as sanitary products are exempted from VAT


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## Ljc (Mar 7, 2020)

At long last,   whoopee .


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## Grannylorraine (Mar 7, 2020)

About time,


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## MikeyBikey (Mar 7, 2020)

The tax raised goes to women's charities (£47million in last five years) currently. So some win and others lose! Things are never that simple!


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## grovesy (Mar 7, 2020)

I have never heard before today it mentioned 1) The VAT rate was lower and 2) That the money went to charities.


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## Matchless (Mar 7, 2020)

They will only give with one hand and take back with the other


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## Ralph-YK (Mar 7, 2020)

About time.
VAT setup has never been quite right. Chocolate biscuits are luxury items for tax. Cakes aren't  See Jaffa Cakes


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## KookyCat (Mar 7, 2020)

It is indeed about time.  To consider tampons a luxury would be amusing if it wasn’t so ridiculously offensive.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Mar 8, 2020)

That was always ridiculous. A huge apology is owed to women everywhere.


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## mikeyB (Mar 8, 2020)

In Scotland they are costing out free female sanitary products for everyone. They are already free in schools and universities. Could be as much as £24m.

As an observation, £24m is just over a quarter of the cost of a single F35 fighter plane. The UK government has ordered 35 from the US.

Different mindset in Scotland. I expect bus loads of ladies from England stocking up.


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## trophywench (Mar 8, 2020)

You wouldn't even mind if it WAS only tampons, maybe?  But it isn't - it's ALL sanitary protection so old fashioned sanitary towels as well as anything more modern, too.


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## Bruce Stephens (Mar 8, 2020)

It's probably worth mentioning that the EU was (and is) planning to allow states to reduce VAT on sanitary products, so even if we'd stayed in we could have done this. (Presuming the planned changes happen, obviously.)


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## mikeyB (Mar 8, 2020)

This all has bugger all to do with leaving the EU. The EU has allowed its member countries to vary the tax on ladies' sanitary products since 2007, which is why in Ireland it is 0%, Germany 5%, Sweden 27%, the variety is endless.

So TW, if you would like to edit your initial post, and Bruce, Tony Blair was the first Prime Minister to kick this into the long grass. Rich politicians with menstruating wives don't notice (That goes for Blair, Brown and Cameron). Ireland, of course, has had female Taoiseachs and Presidents, which probably accounts for their 0%.


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## MikeyBikey (Mar 8, 2020)

mikeyB said:


> This all has bugger all to do with leaving the EU. The EU has allowed its member countries to vary the tax on ladies' sanitary products since 2007, which is why in Ireland it is 0%, Germany 5%, Sweden 27%, the variety is endless.
> 
> So TW, if you would like to edit your initial post, and Bruce, Tony Blair was the first Prime Minister to kick this into the long grass. Rich politicians with menstruating wives don't notice (That goes for Blair, Brown and Cameron). Ireland, of course, has had female Taoiseachs and Presidents, which probably accounts for their 0%.



I am sure BJ's spin doctors would like us to believe the EU was to blame. Unfortunately they think we are all thick and read tabloid newspapers! But then those selfish individuals buying up sanitizer and loo rolls semi confirm it!


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## trophywench (Mar 8, 2020)

Ohhh - and I SO wanted there to be some advantage in leaving the EU.  Now you've dashed my hopes entirely.  I haven't yet seen any actual advantages to it, cos whether we're being controlled by folk we didn't vote for (the EU Parliament) or the ones we did elect ourselves - none of them appear to govern in what I'd deem a sensible way.

It is true that our Civil Service is an organisation woefully behind the times - it was in 1966 when I went to work for them and so why is anyone actually surprised now?  Much the same can be said of large parts of the NHS - even still using in parts the same buildings in use for decades prior to my childhood in the 1950s.  I laughed like hell visiting the diabetes clinic building at the hospital where I was born.  The maternity ward was in that building in 1950, prior to which it was the Nurses Home in pre NHS days!  Victorian brickwork, internal walls still painted with standard cream eggshell!  The diabetes team were great though and providing a VERY modern service to their catchment area.


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## grovesy (Mar 9, 2020)

trophywench said:


> Ohhh - and I SO wanted there to be some advantage in leaving the EU.  Now you've dashed my hopes entirely.  I haven't yet seen any actual advantages to it, cos whether we're being controlled by folk we didn't vote for (the EU Parliament) or the ones we did elect ourselves - none of them appear to govern in what I'd deem a sensible way.
> 
> It is true that our Civil Service is an organisation woefully behind the times - it was in 1966 when I went to work for them and so why is anyone actually surprised now?  Much the same can be said of large parts of the NHS - even still using in parts the same buildings in use for decades prior to my childhood in the 1950s.  I laughed like hell visiting the diabetes clinic building at the hospital where I was born.  The maternity ward was in that building in 1950, prior to which it was the Nurses Home in pre NHS days!  Victorian brickwork, internal walls still painted with standard cream eggshell!  The diabetes team were great though and providing a VERY modern service to their catchment area.


I don't know if any are still in use but back in the 70's there were old workhouses been used as hospitals.


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## silentsquirrel (Mar 9, 2020)

Yes, St Woolos Hospital in Newport is an old workhouse and still in use, now a "Community and Mental Health Hospital".
When OH was parish visiting in 70s - 90s in Gwent / Monmouthshire, elderly were terrified of being admitted there, as to them it was still the workhouse.


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## grovesy (Mar 9, 2020)

silentsquirrel said:


> Yes, St Woolos Hospital in Newport is an old workhouse and still in use, now a "Community and Mental Health Hospital".
> When OH was parish visiting in 70s - 90s in Gwent / Monmouthshire, elderly were terrified of being admitted there, as to them it was still the workhouse.


Yes , I remeber escorting  an Elderly patient who must have had Dementia, to the large Psychiatric Hospital from a Medical Ward. During the journey she began to get distressed  as she recognised the journey and said dont take me there. I was not aware at the time it had been a workhouse.  
This place was quite rural, and grew some of it's own vegetables.


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## trophywench (Mar 9, 2020)

O-oh - bless 'em!  When I was little (under 5 so early 1950s) when I went up the town with mom, we'd sometimes have to visit 'the Welfare' to collect (I think) milk tokens and a bottle of Welfare Orange.  Thick gloopy sweet orange syrup which you diluted with tap water and were allowed one drink of per day.  The bottles had metal screw caps and by the end of the week to inside of the cap was rusty, so presumably there must've been actual orange juice/flesh in it and the citric acid did that.

Remember being highly relieved once she was able to buy orange squash instead!  (and woohoo, actual oranges in the winter!  Jaffa ones, individually encased in lovely purple tissue paper - we were allowed half of one each cos everything like that had to be shared - no favouritism allowed in our house!)


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## grovesy (Mar 9, 2020)

When I was growing  up to in the 50's we lived on what would have been a new council estate, we had a clinic combined rent office, where we too collected the orange juice. I must be strange I quite liked that orange juice, and I also used to chew the cod liver capsules my Dad brought home from the works welfare too.


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## silentsquirrel (Mar 9, 2020)

I really loved the orange juice!  Would probably find it unbearably sweet now.


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