Do you want to discuss boring politics? (31 Viewers)

[shmmeee]

Disagree, everyone is at 12k and increased that band in line with inflation would take that close to 20k. Immediately helping low earners.

The issue also relates to welfare system because, with the tax-free limit so low, in some cases it costs people more to work longer hours.

The tax band freezes and pensions threshold are also forcing people into retirement and this is an issue particularly in the NHS.

It would help all earners below £100k. If your concern is low paid workers then it’s a hugely inefficient way of helping them compared to almost any other measure.

We need to raise money to fix the mess the last 14 years has made. Not give it away to all but the top 1%.

The rest is post hoc justification. Even the Tory/Refirm costings on this accept it’s a net cost.

 

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[shmmeee]

Sounds to me like you are looking for a political party who are more concerned with public services than with wealth creation for the individual.

Almost like I’m left wing. Weird.

 

[MalcSB]

Messaging for HS2 has been an absolute mess. All we've heard is how you can get to London a few minutes quicker. How did they ever think that would get the public onside?

But people wont get to London a few minutes quicker in reality- they have to get to one of the very few HS2 stations first.

 

[MalcSB]

Footfall at New Street and Euston will dictate whether to reduce services on the WCML, which I suspect will rapidly decrease when HS2 goes live. Whether we like it or not, HS2 is going to affect the WCML, and sitting on the Birmingham Loop is not going to be great for us, but we're a fraction of the total passenger footfall on the WCML as a whole, so best to look at the positives.

Use of HS2 - and hence footfall you refer to - will depend a lot on price, there are no real world time savings. It will be a total failure.

 

[Philosoraptor]

Almost like I’m left wing. Weird.

One of my main concerns with Labour is them making efficiency savings.

It has taken a lot of time to change Labour into a clone of the Tories.

Do you think they would have made better efficiency savings if they had just joined the Tories instead?

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

A question for those with more economics textbooks than me, but why has a VAT cut to the pre-2010 level of 17.5% not been put forward? A tax that affects both businesses and individuals and would help reduce the cost of living in a variety of ways for the latter.

Just seems that David Cameron decided it needed hiking to 20% and that’s that.

 

[MalcSB]

Id say rebanding council tax is a tax on the wealthy. It’ll lead to a rebalancing of the tax base away from the poorer north towards the south. As is the rumoured tax on banks mentioned in Tony’s video he posted.

The tax burden is at an all time high and the rich and big business also tend to be the hardest to go after quickly and easily as they can change their behaviour the easiest. Annoying but true in a world of global capital. Also parties don’t tend to win elections promising huge tax rises.

We managed to fix public services without huge tax rises on working people before. I don’t see why now it’s suddenly supposed to be impossible.



Average wage is about £28k according to Google but I’d imagine in nuclear it’s a bit more.

Didn’t the sale of gold reserves at an incredibly low price pay for some of that. Also, the tax raid on private pensions which is surely a tax on working people’s assets and caused the demise of the private defined benefit pension,

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

It would help all earners below £100k. If your concern is low paid workers then it’s a hugely inefficient way of helping them compared to almost any other measure.

We need to raise money to fix the mess the last 14 years has made. Not give it away to all but the top 1%

You’re parroting a slogans now.

How is the first £20k being tax-free helping out earners above £100k? It helps out everyone at all income brackets being squeezed.

40% was the top rate of tax under the last Labour government. Now something like 8,000,000 people are in this tax band and most of whom will be middle class professionals rather ‘the rich’.

The country needs tax cuts, the highest tax burden in 70 years is not a way to grow the economy.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

You’re parroting a slogans now.

How is the first £20k being tax-free helping out earners above £100k? It helps out everyone at all income brackets being squeezed.

40% was the top rate of tax under the last Labour government. Now something like 8,000,000 people are in this tax band and most of whom will be middle class professionals rather ‘the rich’.

The country needs tax cuts, the highest tax burden in 70 years is not a way to grow the economy.

It’s higher than 40k

 

[MalcSB]

It’s higher than 40k

That’s not what he was saying

 

[shmmeee]

You’re parroting a slogans now.

How is the first £20k being tax-free helping out earners above £100k? It helps out everyone at all income brackets being squeezed.

40% was the top rate of tax under the last Labour government. Now something like 8,000,000 people are in this tax band and most of whom will be middle class professionals rather ‘the rich’.

The country needs tax cuts, the highest tax burden in 70 years is not a way to grow the economy.

And when the country starts growing we can afford to give people in the top 5% a tax cut. But right now it isn’t a priority.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

You’re parroting a slogans now.

How is the first £20k being tax-free helping out earners above £100k? It helps out everyone at all income brackets being squeezed.

40% was the top rate of tax under the last Labour government. Now something like 8,000,000 people are in this tax band and most of whom will be middle class professionals rather ‘the rich’.

The country needs tax cuts, the highest tax burden in 70 years is not a way to grow the economy.

Well, middle and working class people need them, large businesses and the top earners need to pay more. Taxes bother our household a lot less than our mortgage payments which are due to go up by £2500 a year thanks to this government’s incompetence.

I have no issue paying more tax because it can go towards better public services. Bigger mortgage payments just help make a wealthy bank get wealthier.

 

[shmmeee]

One of my main concerns with Labour is them making efficiency savings.

It has taken a lot of time to change Labour into a clone of the Tories.

Do you think they would have made better efficiency savings if they had just joined the Tories instead?

ive not seen Labour claim efficiency savings, just Reform. Is the manifesto announcement today? I guess we’ll find out.

 

[shmmeee]

Well, middle and working class people need them, large businesses and the top earners need to pay more. Taxes bother our household a lot less than our mortgage payments which are due to go up by £2500 a year thanks to this government’s incompetence.

I have no issue paying more tax because it can go towards better public services. Bigger mortgage payments just help make a wealthy bank get wealthier.

A plurality of people feel the same.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

We

And when the country starts growing we can afford to give people in the top 5% a tax cut. But right now it isn’t a priority.

That’s not even remotely true. Increasing the tax-free allowance helps the poorest first.

 

[shmmeee]

We

That’s not even remotely true. Increasing the tax-free allowance helps the poorest first.

The poorest don’t pay income tax.

 

[rob9872]

Labour launching manifesto today, Conservatives a couple of days ago, in fact most of them over past week, 3 weeks into a 6 week campaign. Why are they all so delayed? It's a not like a surprising snap election, surely everyone should have been ready to go on launch day? For muppets like me, apart from grandstanding, why don't we have six weeks to go over and look at them and discuss?

 

[SBAndy]

Labour launching manifesto today, Conservatives a couple of days ago, in fact most of them over past week, 3 weeks into a 6 week campaign. Why are they all so delayed? It's a not like a surprising snap election, surely everyone should have been ready to go on launch day? For muppets like me, apart from grandstanding, why don't we have six weeks to go over and look at them and discuss?

There’s been a fair few TV debates out the way without having to face scrutiny, hasn’t there.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Labour launching manifesto today, Conservatives a couple of days ago, in fact most of them over past week, 3 weeks into a 6 week campaign. Why are they all so delayed? It's a not like a surprising snap election, surely everyone should have been ready to go on launch day? For muppets like me, apart from grandstanding, why don't we have six weeks to go over and look at them and discuss?

The Tories especially could have released theirs at the same time as the election announcement

 

[fernandopartridge]

The poorest don’t pay income tax.

The poorest working people do, 37.5 to 40 hours a week at national minimum wage is £22-23k, well over the income tax threshold.

 

[shmmeee]

The poorest working people do, 37.5 to 40 hours a week at national minimum wage is £22-23k, well over the income tax threshold.

The bottom 10% of *households* earned about 14k on average and will get various benefits as well. And updating those benefits is far more effective at tackling poverty than across the board tax cuts.

 

[Terry Gibson's perm]

Polling cards have arrived this morning.

 

[chiefdave]

The tax burden is at an all time high

This doesn't seem to get mentioned anywhere near as often as us being told Starmer won't be able to change anything as there's no money. Where the fuck is it all going?

Counterpoint: you shouldn’t need the public onside for basic infrastructure. Just build it. I don’t care if Doris doesn’t think we need another prison, reservoir or train line.

Was in Sweden a few months back and got talking to the locals and the general opinion seemed to be that high taxes weren't really considered an issue by most people because things just work. A new school or hospital is needed is just gets built, roads need building or repairing it just gets sorted. We seem to have the worst of both worlds, a high tax burden and not much to show for it

 

[David O'Day]

Thats almost ancient history now, and not necessarily representative of all voters.

It's poll taken a month ago and how is a fucking poll not representative of what people think?

 

[MalcSB]

It's poll taken a month ago and how is a fucking poll not representative of what people think?

Apologies, I misread it as a 2019 poll. Will delete post.
But just over 1/3 overall willing to pay more taxes isn’t a mandate.

 

[fatso]

The poorest don’t pay income tax.

Surely they do if they're working full time and getting the national minimum wage.

(Under 21's probs at uni or in some form of apprenticeship)

 

[Grendel]

The poorest don’t pay income tax.

What are you on about now. Even someone who has a state pension and a very modest private pension of £4k per annum would pay income tax.

 

[shmmeee]

Surely they do if they're working full time and getting the national minimum wage.

(Under 21's probs at uni or in some form of apprenticeship)

You assume everyone can get a full time NMW job. The stats don’t back that up. Illness, precarious work, not being able to get the hours, etc all impact.

 

[David O'Day]

Surely they do if they're working full time and getting the national minimum wage.

(Under 21's probs at uni or in some form of apprenticeship)

The poorest deciles in society don't work full time

 

[clint van damme]

Use of HS2 - and hence footfall you refer to - will depend a lot on price, there are no real world time savings. It will be a total failure.

In the past I've made a lot of the points you've made and also predicted what would happen with HS2.
But we can't go on not doing things because they'll fail, we have to make them work.
And with regards to your earlier posts regarding upskilling the workforce we have to do that as well as investing in bold infrastructure projects, it shouldn't be either or.
We are going backwards at an alarming rate, we need to redress that.

 

[fatso]

You assume everyone can get a full time NMW job. The stats don’t back that up. Illness, precarious work, not being able to get the hours, etc all impact.

No one should be getting less than the NMW

Granted some may not work full time, but unless your hampered by child care, illness, disability or being a carer etc etc, there's little reason to not work full time, and if you legitimately can't, there's a number of ways to claim enough benefits (legitimately) to take your income above the minimum tax threshold.

 

[shmmeee]

Climbing the Summit: Big cities in the UK and the G7 - Centre for Cities

Associate Director Anthony Breach and Director of Policy and Research Paul Swinney explore the role played by the largest cities outside London in the UK’s yawning prosperity gap with other G7 economies.

www.centreforcities.org

If only someone had some policy around making the rest of the country as productive as London. We could give it a cute videogame based name, Up a Level or something

 

[shmmeee]

No one should be getting less than the NMW

And yet the bottom ten percent are earning less than a 40hr a week NMW job. As I say there’s lots of reasons people can’t work full time in practice. Caring responsibilities for example.

 

[MalcSB]

In the past I've made a lot of the points you've made and also predicted what would happen with HS2.
But we can't go on not doing things because they'll fail, we have to make them work.
And with regards to your earlier posts regarding upskilling the workforce we have to do that as well as investing in bold infrastructure projects, it shouldn't be either or.
We are going backwards at an alarming rate, we need to redress that.

But was there a genuine need for a high speed rail project that shaves minutes off “on train” journey time, but adds significantly in terms of time to a train access point, in such a relatively small country? Was it really a priority over the investments in societal benefit that I mentioned? No country can afford to do everything. I don’t think anyone I know will directly benefit from HS2.

 

[Grendel]

And yet the bottom ten percent are earning less than a 40hr a week NMW job. As I say there’s lots of reasons people can’t work full time in practice. Caring responsibilities for example.

That doesn't mean they are poor - many will be students with part time work will be in that situation