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So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.

Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again

It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality

It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.

At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it

Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.

Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election

As I keep saying -

1) Merge employee NI And IT
2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially.
3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable.
4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....

Taxation is the best way to deal with this.

I’m at a loss as to how 1 and 2 would work. The easiest way of achieving what you want is to rename NI and apply it to people who are below the pension age a - so you may as well keep NI out a plateau on it at £50,000 and increase income tax to 42%.

The other issue that makes other changes impossible is that income tax is a delegated tax in Scotland an I think elsewhere (it just isn’t different in Wales and NI).

You merge employee NI and IT

That (at least in the short term) you create a new rate of basic tax for pensioners (below £50K income) that is the old IT rate - so they don't pay the NI extra.

This is simple to administer, since HMRC has DOB on their systems.

But we already have that with NI - you stop paying it on the April 6th after you get your state pension.

So the easiest way to do what you want is to leave it as it is

No. The point is that pensioners over 50K will be paying more tax. And all the others currently not paying employee NI.

Which again could be done by removing the 2% employee NI rate that NI goes to after £967 a week on to income tax to make income tax 42%.

Easily done and that 2% higher rate NI is a relatively recent invention anyway

The idea is to remove employee NI from the board entirely. So no games to play avoiding NI.

Sensible in many ways. However, two things would follow.

1 Better-off pensioners would pay more than now.
2 The headline rate of income tax would be higher than now.

Both of these are electorally as popular as being told to find a stick, sharpen it and then poke yourself in the eye with the sharp stick. (Sharp sticks and eye pokers were both cut in the coalition austerity round).

The problem remains- we all sort of Intuit that fiscal rebalancing is needed in general, but not in particular.

It's about messaging

1) You announce the abolition of Income Tax and Employee National Insurance
2) You announce the Introduction of the Save The NHS, Protect Cute Kittens and Kick Racists In The Goolies Tax.
3) Any opposition to the proposals is framed as you hate the NHS, you want to kill kittens and you like racists.

It’s difficult to interpret hypothetical polling in a way. The question asks “could”, but it appears some people are answering “should”. The Government could do any of those things, and I don’t think, pace @TSE , that this proves they believe in the magic money tree. Voters might be answering “could if they raised taxes”.

I’d be interested to see a breakdown of how much each of these things actually costs, although several of them have lots of unknowns (it depends how long the Iran War goes on). The second least supported (bail out universities in financial trouble) would be fairly cheap, certainly compared to most of that list.

I’m also interested in how wording affects these. “Bail out” sounds very negative. If you changed the wording there to “Support…”, how much would the answers shift?

So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.

Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again

It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality

It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.

At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it

Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.

Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election

As I keep saying -

1) Merge employee NI And IT
2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially.
3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable.
4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....

Taxation is the best way to deal with this.

another halfwit happy that scroungers on benefits get off tax free but want pensioners, most of whom will have worked all their lives , to get hammered

It is an economic nightmare and the public have not woken up to just how serious this is

The magic money tree is over and todays bond markets shows that it is not possible to borrow anymore

Starmer and Reeves face a nightmare scenario and, unfair as it is, will get the flack

Labour would be crazy to change leaders at present

On the Triple lock - this points out the problem.

We need the OBR to put an appropriate delay between retail and wage inflation so that there is a suitable gain in the OBR’s budget model if you destroy the lock. At the moment it doesn’t exist so there is no benefit in destroying it

There was an interesting podcast from someone (IFS?) about this a few months back.

The problem with the triple lock is primarily that it's calculated annually without any smoothing. If inflation hits 10% one year, and wages also grow at 10% the same year, the triple lock goes up 10%. If inflation goes up 10% one year and wages 10% the following year, then the triple lock goes up 21%. despite inflation and wages having only gone up 10%.

The effect is also really difficult to model into the future, as not only do you have to predict the broad trends of the future (difficult), but you also have to know how closely wage spikes will lag inflation (virtually impossible). If you get a full blown wage-price spiral going, the triple lock doesn't outpace either by much, whereas a short sharp shock in inflation, followed by a matching spike in wage growth 12 months later rockets the triple lock upwards.

As a result, most of the government modeling of the triple lock assumes that wage growth and inflation move together within the same financial year, which makes the triple lock seem fairly inexpensive. (The more I discover about treasury modeling, the more I realise we're governed by imbeciles.)

This in turn means that if the chancellor cans the triple lock, on paper it doesn't save much money, so they can't do what all recent chancellors are won't to do as soon as any "extra" cash arrives, and immediately rush off and spend loads more (or if one is very lucky, even cut taxes a little), as the OBR won't credit them with any extra "headroom*" for binning the triple lock.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, with all it's current volatility, the state pension keeps rocketing upwards. But that's different, because the modeling keeps saying that won't happen in the future....!

* "Headroom" - the tiny difference between the obscene amount the chancellor is borrowing, and the obscene amount of borrowing at which it is judged the bond market will completely take fright.

I suspect the OBR will be needed to address the serious nature of this issue with no easy answers

OBR clowns have never got a forecast right and will not be changing soon.

So at least 50% or more of voters want to keep the triple lock and subsidise energy bills during the Iran War. Most voters from all parties want to keep the triple lock, though less than half of Reform voters want to subsidise energy bills. They are divided on increasing defence spending and not yet ready to believe a UBI is possible but not majority opposed and Green voters back it as do half of Labour voters.

Most voters aren't that bothered about students though, more refusing to forgive student loans or bail out universities than not with Green voters again the main exception. Furlough is also not going to be believed as realistic either again

It doesn't matter what voters want, and this is where Starmer and Reeves are about to come up against reality

It does because voters elect their governments, as this poll proves the triple lock is untouchable, most voters from all parties want to retain it.

At most Labour could get away with means testing it that is it

Means testing the State Pension - that would go down way worse than killing the triple lock.

Throw one big increase on the state pension and few would notice the lock has gone, announce means testing (in any form on any part) and your political party will be gone at the next election

As I keep saying -

1) Merge employee NI And IT
2) Protect the basic rate pensioners. Only those on 50K+ will pay more tax initially.
3) Put all the old age benefits in a blender, and make the result taxable.
4) quadruple lock - the pension is the personal allowance and the personal allowance is the pension. This means that for any pension increase the Chancellor will have to raise the personal allowance. Suddenly....

Taxation is the best way to deal with this.

1) NO, ringfence NI for the state pension and JSA only. Other proposals sensible

If you ringfence NI for the state pension etc then Government will need to raise other taxes to account for the shortfall…

And I imagine NI would need to increase on the regular to cover the liabilities

No, increase NI for all workers to cover their state pensions and then you can cut income tax a bit as none of that would go for state pensions

How do you “cover their state pensions” when you have no idea how much that will be in real terms in 30 years? NI has never been a defined contribution investment scheme.

NI was set up solely to fund state pensions and unemployment benefit

Not now - it is not a hypothecated tax