Cameron gives his personal backing to contractors

[Ignis Fatuus]

I'm encoraged too. Labours starting point was we are slimey characters who deserve a good slapping tax wise at least Camerons tone is positive.

And the Conservatives' starting point is that what is important is the success of business. That BTW doesn't mean you and me, it means the client companies that are tired of having to pay so much for you and me.

Wise up, nobody thinks we're worth protecting.

[Ignis Fatuus]

...The linky says the company does not have to pay NI contribution as long as the employee is here for less than 52 weeks (1 yr).
....

That's pretty much normal. If you use your Ltd Co to contract in other countries you don't normally pay their NI either. I certainly wouldn't expect any complaints about that from a group of people who themselves are not famous for paying lots of NI.

[VectraMan]

I'm encoraged too. Labours starting point was we are slimey characters who deserve a good slapping tax wise at least Camerons tone is positive.

WHS. It's easy to be cynical, and they are after all politicians, but no party is ever going to be elected on a manifesto of supporting contractors. It's naive to think they're ever going to be "for us", but at least they're not against us in the same way as Labour.

[Ignis Fatuus]

WHS. It's easy to be cynical, and they are after all politicians, but no party is ever going to be elected on a manifesto of supporting contractors. It's naive to think they're ever going to be "for us", but at least they're not against us in the same way as Labour.

Well, that is a good point. I don't want to be supported, all I want is to be left alone to get on with my life. The Tories might just let me do that (though their record is not as good as they think) but it just isn't in Labour's DNA.

[The_Equalizer]

One thing that has been missed out here is that Bob programmers rarely have more than a couple of years' experience and it can often show. I had always thought that Bobs considered coding quite low level from a professional stand point and hence didn't hang round coding if they could help it. There's a nice blog post about the mentality here:

Stuck in Code

[Doggy Styles]

WHS. It's easy to be cynical, and they are after all politicians, but no party is ever going to be elected on a manifesto of supporting contractors. It's naive to think they're ever going to be "for us", but at least they're not against us in the same way as Labour.

Quite.

And he knows he's nailed his colours to the mast now, which will make it much more difficult to give us a kicking down the line. It is easy to be cynical about Cameron, but he didn't have to say that.

Also, compare Cameron's first statement about contractors with Labour's. In the pre-budget review of 1999, Gordon Brown simply sneaked the IR35 measure in as part something else, and Dawn Primarolo went straight on the attack and tried to demonise us for the next five years.

There is a big difference.

[Ignis Fatuus]

One thing that has been missed out here is that Bob programmers rarely have more than a couple of years' experience and it can often show. I had always thought that Bobs considered coding quite low level from a professional stand point and hence didn't hang round coding if they could help it. There's a nice blog post about the mentality here:

Stuck in Code

That's interesting. You do see the same here to an extent, in fact it's part of why I'm contracting. I found out years ago that the pay for "just a programmer" was defined to be less than that for a manager, but the rate for a contractor was whetever it took to get the skills.

[barrydidit]

....and as we go for economic growth this government is getting right behind them.

[vetran]

he was right this is the view from the Tories point of view. Unfortunately all the parties see contractors like that.

[Paddy]

+1

The tories are on the side of contractors, on our side.
So we should be giving it a bit less of the icons and a bit more of the 's
I say well done Mr Cameron, and thank you.

Wrong then and wrong now