It's not retrospective because we thought of it a while ago.

[Sysman]

I first encountered retrospective legislation in the 70s. I'd got a speeding fine and what was a 3 year endorsement just before going to uni. That meant I couldn't drive the college minibus, which was a damn shame, but I assumed that I would be able to get a driving job once that endorsement expired.

Hah, the gubmint of the time extended driving licence endorsements to 4 years and applied it retrospectively, which meant that I couldn't get a driving job nor a job with a company car/van when I left uni.

It completely knacked any ambitions I may have had of being a salesman. Or even starting on the ladder of getting an HGV licence for that matter - something which would have come in handy as a fallback trade in later life.

It was all my parents fault

[BrilloPad]

What gets me is they are "retrospectively clarifying". I thought it was the job of the courts to interpret/clarify the law?

I hope there is more success than in the NR case.....

[expat]

The BN66 thread made me think how this government clearly feels that it has the moral high ground (no, don't laugh), and that the laws they make are merely a codification of what is morally correct. Therefore you should already be doing what is clearly morally correct (as seen by HMG) and the law is only a clarification of that. Strictly speaking the law may be retrospective, but the obedience to their vision has always been expected.

This shows throughout, for example on the high Road Tax for some existing cars: challenged that it was retrospective, Jacqui Smith argued soundly, and shamelessly, that it was not, because "it has been clear for ten years which way we were going". In plain English, the law is retrospective, but NL's thoughts are not, so you should already have predicted this ten years ago.