The common factor is large numbers of patients who cannot be discharged to Social Care. We are only just starting into autumn.
Surely the perfect time for KT and the Fuckup Gang to (a) cut the NHS budget and (b) provide sneering responses to why all decent people should already have private insurance.
Big vote winner. People die. So what. Say most right-minded people. They vote to see their granny pointlessly die.
KT?
Kamikaze / Truss
Ah, now it makes sense.
Conservative Party wiped out by the K-T extinction event.
Surely the thing about this debate about who should select Tory leader is this:
Tory Party members are mentalists.
I know that's an easy political jibe with a big dollop of truth to it, but there's a broader issue in party members choosing a leader.
It tends to favour purity over electability, extremism over unity, and making the individual, self selecting member feel good over giving the country someone who might form a stable, competent government.
I'd note Labour members chose Corbyn. Twice.
*all* parties can suffer this. However, this specific problem is that Truss is Prime Minister. Jezbollah was not PM and not close to being PM.
The same truth is there for both. A party leader has to have the support of MPs. Jezza lost the majority of Labour MPs in 2016 and staggered along for another 3 years in a state of war with his own party. Truss was not selected by MPs and they are openly at war with her.
My particular beef with Labour members (or, in fairness, certain Labour members) over Corbyn is that they made Labour unelectable and foisted Johnson (and Truss) on us with a sizable Parliamentary majority. Now they sit back, all smug, and say "You see, we were right!"
You weren't right, you self-indulgent donkey f***ers. You can all eat a massive slice of blame pie until you puke.
Anyway, other than that, I think they are fine and am totally over it.
You will be gratified to know that I have, coincidentally, discovered in my current history book that in the 1860s or so, they used to bang people up in Dartmoor for life for 'bestiality with an ass', and also 'indecent behaviour with a she-ass'. The authors did wonder what the difference was, but showed a deplorable degree of focus on their main topic by refusing to dive down that particular diverticulum.
I thought it was a hanging offence.
Also how did anyone ever get caught at it in pre CCTV days?
I read about one case in the 1680's where a wealthy woman was condemned to death for doing it with her greyhound. It was her servants who caught her in flagrante delicto, and gave evidence against her.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
If a sensible right-winger like you has come around to this view, then the Overton window really has shifted.
My views on economic matters are a good deal more centrist than ten or fifteen years ago.
Splendid. And undoubtedly timed to coincide with the midterms to give the dems a little bump.
Speaking of a little bump, perhaps Truss and co could emulate this strategy by legalising cocaine. It would certainly deliver on her promise to "get Britain moving" - and if Coca Cola returned to its original formula, it could even be sold to Rees-Mogg as a return to 19th century values.
Plus, it could even bring noted nose candy connoisseur Gove back on side. What's not to like?
My impression is that most Victorians were out of their heads on drugs, most of the time.
Sherlock Holmes was a regular (fictional) user, but what surprised me is it wasn't a quick toot or even a refreshing glass of vin mariani, but rather the way in which he gets out a syringe, rolls up his sleeve (where numerous trackmarks are described), and shoots up, calm as you like, in the presence of Dr Watson. Suggesting at the very least such a practice was relatively normal at the time.
I believe it was Noel Gallagher who said that taking drugs was as normal as having a cup of tea. If he'd been a Victorian, he'd probably have been right.
If we are lucky Mr Gallagher will get bored and complete the rework of Be Here Now which removes all of the cocaine-fuelled bullshit and unveils properly the great songs buried under the weight of them being snowblind.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Indeed and wealth taxes tend to drive efficient use of it.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Are you going to put bringing back male primogeniture in the next manifesto, ifd the Conservative Party bother with such documents any more?
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Surely the thing about this debate about who should select Tory leader is this:
Tory Party members are mentalists.
I know that's an easy political jibe with a big dollop of truth to it, but there's a broader issue in party members choosing a leader.
It tends to favour purity over electability, extremism over unity, and making the individual, self selecting member feel good over giving the country someone who might form a stable, competent government.
I'd note Labour members chose Corbyn. Twice.
*all* parties can suffer this. However, this specific problem is that Truss is Prime Minister. Jezbollah was not PM and not close to being PM.
The same truth is there for both. A party leader has to have the support of MPs. Jezza lost the majority of Labour MPs in 2016 and staggered along for another 3 years in a state of war with his own party. Truss was not selected by MPs and they are openly at war with her.
My particular beef with Labour members (or, in fairness, certain Labour members) over Corbyn is that they made Labour unelectable and foisted Johnson (and Truss) on us with a sizable Parliamentary majority. Now they sit back, all smug, and say "You see, we were right!"
You weren't right, you self-indulgent donkey f***ers. You can all eat a massive slice of blame pie until you puke.
Anyway, other than that, I think they are fine and am totally over it.
You will be gratified to know that I have, coincidentally, discovered in my current history book that in the 1860s or so, they used to bang people up in Dartmoor for life for 'bestiality with an ass', and also 'indecent behaviour with a she-ass'. The authors did wonder what the difference was, but showed a deplorable degree of focus on their main topic by refusing to dive down that particular diverticulum.
I thought it was a hanging offence.
Also how did anyone ever get caught at it in pre CCTV days?
I'm not an expert and don't want to do an internet search (!) but suspect a lot of those were condemnation to death then - what was the word? - alleviated to life sentences. As with gay men in the early C19, but timing is important, though: it's quite possible sentencing was reduced anyway by then.
As for the latter, I dunno, but for one thing there would be far, far more people around the average farm in those days - maybe 20X?
Not the old ‘death recorded’ again? That could confuse even quite clever scholars…
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Yes, another policy for Labour to campaign on. Pay better wages and build loads of social housing so housing benefit stops being a transfer of cash from the state to landlords.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Capital is a stock (accumulated saving, i.e. income minus expenditure), income is a flow, i.e. a rate per unit of time. You cannot add them up and make sense; they should accordingly be treated differently.
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Yes but. Quite a large share of that it is the government which is the employer anyways.
Surely the thing about this debate about who should select Tory leader is this:
Tory Party members are mentalists.
I know that's an easy political jibe with a big dollop of truth to it, but there's a broader issue in party members choosing a leader.
It tends to favour purity over electability, extremism over unity, and making the individual, self selecting member feel good over giving the country someone who might form a stable, competent government.
I'd note Labour members chose Corbyn. Twice.
*all* parties can suffer this. However, this specific problem is that Truss is Prime Minister. Jezbollah was not PM and not close to being PM.
The same truth is there for both. A party leader has to have the support of MPs. Jezza lost the majority of Labour MPs in 2016 and staggered along for another 3 years in a state of war with his own party. Truss was not selected by MPs and they are openly at war with her.
My particular beef with Labour members (or, in fairness, certain Labour members) over Corbyn is that they made Labour unelectable and foisted Johnson (and Truss) on us with a sizable Parliamentary majority. Now they sit back, all smug, and say "You see, we were right!"
You weren't right, you self-indulgent donkey f***ers. You can all eat a massive slice of blame pie until you puke.
Anyway, other than that, I think they are fine and am totally over it.
You will be gratified to know that I have, coincidentally, discovered in my current history book that in the 1860s or so, they used to bang people up in Dartmoor for life for 'bestiality with an ass', and also 'indecent behaviour with a she-ass'. The authors did wonder what the difference was, but showed a deplorable degree of focus on their main topic by refusing to dive down that particular diverticulum.
I thought it was a hanging offence.
Also how did anyone ever get caught at it in pre CCTV days?
I read about one case in the 1680's where a wealthy woman was condemned to death for doing it with her greyhound. It was her servants who caught her in flagrante delicto, and gave evidence against her.
Of course, yes, an often forgotten aspect of the eternal Servant Problem. Households were bigger in those days, with less privacy.
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
True. However you also need regional minimum wages. Life is cheaper in many parts of the country, than say in London.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
So no deferred enjoyment of your earnings then? Savings bad, spending good?
Land - fair enough. Inheritance - ditto.
Money earned and put aside for early retirement, a rainy day, or a time when you can actually spend it? I don't think that's fair. Our savings rates are bad enough already.
I think the 1922 committee have the right to alter the rules and if they felt they had enough support, they could either (a) suspend or abolish the right of party members to have the final say, or (b) require a very high number of MPs to nominate someone in order for them to go through to the first round (or alternatively to the final round).
(a) definitely not possible and I don't think they can alter the 15% rule either. Their power extends to the nuts and bolts of the election not to substance. Think of them as returning officers.
d they could choose to increase it further in later rounds. So what would stop them picking a much higher figure?
Secondly, if the committee doesn't have the power either to set a very high threshold or to suspend the membership vote entirely, who does? Would Tory MPs as a whole have the power to adopt a rule change (by what majority?) or would another body within the party have to do so? Either way it is at least conceivable that sufficient support for changing the rules could develop.
I believe it's in the party rules so the membership gets a vote.
Yes it’s in the party constitution so in order to remove the membership vote the …. Err…members have to vote to remove it.
Howard tried to remove the members vote before his resignation but the members rejected it.
Quite right too, the Conservative Party should not be the only main UK party which does not give its members any say in who is elected its leader.
MPs get to pick 2 candidates to put to the membership, if they cannot find 2 candidates they can live with then that is their fault
Old ways were better on this. But its hard to go back, as members are super entitled- as we've seen with corbynite tendencies they think they are more important than the country.
Though the current system does risk Labour, if it wins the next election and is still in power in a decade, replacing Starmer or a centrist successor like Streeting with a Corbynite candidate if that candidate wins the Labour membership, without needing to win a general election either.
The current system can therefore benefit the hard left as much as the hard right if a party is in power long enough
I have seen the idea floated of passing a law that a parliament automatically dissolves after a short period following a new PM taking office (mid-parliament).
I don't really like the idea much, it has to be said. Strikes me (like the FTPA) as creating unintended consequences - cementing a bad leader in place because MPs are scared they will have to face a GE if they move to depose them.
But I'm not sure what the solution is. I do think Truss' election has pushed the envelope compared to previous mid-parliament leadership takeovers because she has been so forceful about her view that the governments before her have been wrong on economic policy - and decided to steer the ship away from it. Perhaps she is feeling the consequences of this in the polls though. Doesn't help the country in the interim, mind.
Give everyone a vote in the election process when the governing party changes leader?
Best solution: elect the new PM in a multi-round vote among MPs of all parties. If they can't pick a leader of the country, what is the point of having MPs?
There's some logic in that.
No there really isn't. Unless of course you think all MPs should vote on all party leaders. And of course the mischief that will result from that is exactly what our Russo-phile friend Hello is after.
The Governing party leader should be picked by the MPs of the party concerned. Once that has been decided there can be a compulsory Vote of Confidence in Parliament to confirm that person as PM.
Surely the thing about this debate about who should select Tory leader is this:
Tory Party members are mentalists.
I know that's an easy political jibe with a big dollop of truth to it, but there's a broader issue in party members choosing a leader.
It tends to favour purity over electability, extremism over unity, and making the individual, self selecting member feel good over giving the country someone who might form a stable, competent government.
I'd note Labour members chose Corbyn. Twice.
*all* parties can suffer this. However, this specific problem is that Truss is Prime Minister. Jezbollah was not PM and not close to being PM.
The same truth is there for both. A party leader has to have the support of MPs. Jezza lost the majority of Labour MPs in 2016 and staggered along for another 3 years in a state of war with his own party. Truss was not selected by MPs and they are openly at war with her.
My particular beef with Labour members (or, in fairness, certain Labour members) over Corbyn is that they made Labour unelectable and foisted Johnson (and Truss) on us with a sizable Parliamentary majority. Now they sit back, all smug, and say "You see, we were right!"
You weren't right, you self-indulgent donkey f***ers. You can all eat a massive slice of blame pie until you puke.
Anyway, other than that, I think they are fine and am totally over it.
You will be gratified to know that I have, coincidentally, discovered in my current history book that in the 1860s or so, they used to bang people up in Dartmoor for life for 'bestiality with an ass', and also 'indecent behaviour with a she-ass'. The authors did wonder what the difference was, but showed a deplorable degree of focus on their main topic by refusing to dive down that particular diverticulum.
I thought it was a hanging offence.
Also how did anyone ever get caught at it in pre CCTV days?
I read about one case in the 1680's where a wealthy woman was condemned to death for doing it with her greyhound. It was her servants who caught her in flagrante delicto, and gave evidence against her.
Of course, yes, an often forgotten aspect of the eternal Servant Problem. Households were bigger in those days, with less privacy.
If I recall collector, when I lived in Auckland (NZ) a man was apprehended in one of the city reserves being all too friendly with a local cow. Just bad luck I think.
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Yep exactly my point. This is a result of the Working Tax credits system introduced by Brown. It actively encourages employers to pay below living wage rates in the knowledge that the difference will be made up by the Government, so avoiding people refusing to work for them.
The Government should force employers to pay a living wage. And if the employers say they can't afford to then clearly their business model is not viable and they should be allowed to fail. Though I actually doubt many would.
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Yep exactly my point. This is a result of the Working Tax credits system introduced by Brown. It actively encourages employers to pay below living wage rates in the knowledge that the difference will be made up by the Government, so avoiding people refusing to work for them.
The Government should force employers to pay a living wage. And if the employers say they can't afford to then clearly their business model is not viable and they should be allowed to fail. Though I actually doubt many would.
It also introduces a bunch of stupid cliff edges and disincentives to work as eligibility depends on working a certain number of hours and then people hit a ~70% marginal rate so they don't bother working more than that so they never get off benefits.
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Yep exactly my point. This is a result of the Working Tax credits system introduced by Brown. It actively encourages employers to pay below living wage rates in the knowledge that the difference will be made up by the Government, so avoiding people refusing to work for them.
The Government should force employers to pay a living wage. And if the employers say they can't afford to then clearly their business model is not viable and they should be allowed to fail. Though I actually doubt many would.
Rather curiously the old Speenhamland System of the late C18/early C19 is very similar to the UC system. Though in that case (and indeed here, too) it was the taxpayers in general who ended up subsidising the rich landowners and farmers by topping up their workforces.
One big difference in housing today is the political demand and supply for restrictions on new housing. That doesn't seem to have been as popular or permissible a political position in the past.
A big difference, I think, is that housing was a massively important issue to both Conservative and Labour parties, from the 1920's to the 1980's, which exercised a lot of the best minds in those parties, and then somehow, it fell off the radar.
One really interesting (and very obscure) book I've read, Piers Wauchope's history of Camden Council, illustrates this. When it was formed, in 1964, Camden was dominated by St. Pancras councillors, who were old left, and obsessed with housing. By the 1980's it was dominated by the new left, based in Hampstead, whose principal concerns were nuclear disarmament, anti-apartheid, and overseas aid.
I’ve read that book (indeed my name is in it, with a tiny mention for my first ever local election as candidate back in the 1980s); it’s an interesting take on London local politics in that era, but Wauchope is far from an independent source - he spends a lot of time bigging up his own views, and of course he subsequently ended up as one of the many UKIP leaders, so his is a relatively extreme viewpoint.
Labour certainly went off the rails in London back then; the story of how Camden clawed its way back to actually being a relatively respected council, even within London, would make a great second volume - which of course Wauchope would never write.
Many of the figures from Camden politics back then managed to reinvent themselves for changing times, and went on to have political careers at national level - others stuck around in Camden and made a lasting contribution to local politics. Wauchope achieved neither.
I think the 1922 committee have the right to alter the rules and if they felt they had enough support, they could either (a) suspend or abolish the right of party members to have the final say, or (b) require a very high number of MPs to nominate someone in order for them to go through to the first round (or alternatively to the final round).
(a) definitely not possible and I don't think they can alter the 15% rule either. Their power extends to the nuts and bolts of the election not to substance. Think of them as returning officers.
d they could choose to increase it further in later rounds. So what would stop them picking a much higher figure?
Secondly, if the committee doesn't have the power either to set a very high threshold or to suspend the membership vote entirely, who does? Would Tory MPs as a whole have the power to adopt a rule change (by what majority?) or would another body within the party have to do so? Either way it is at least conceivable that sufficient support for changing the rules could develop.
I believe it's in the party rules so the membership gets a vote.
Yes it’s in the party constitution so in order to remove the membership vote the …. Err…members have to vote to remove it.
Howard tried to remove the members vote before his resignation but the members rejected it.
Quite right too, the Conservative Party should not be the only main UK party which does not give its members any say in who is elected its leader.
MPs get to pick 2 candidates to put to the membership, if they cannot find 2 candidates they can live with then that is their fault
Old ways were better on this. But its hard to go back, as members are super entitled- as we've seen with corbynite tendencies they think they are more important than the country.
Though the current system does risk Labour, if it wins the next election and is still in power in a decade, replacing Starmer or a centrist successor like Streeting with a Corbynite candidate if that candidate wins the Labour membership, without needing to win a general election either.
The current system can therefore benefit the hard left as much as the hard right if a party is in power long enough
I have seen the idea floated of passing a law that a parliament automatically dissolves after a short period following a new PM taking office (mid-parliament).
I don't really like the idea much, it has to be said. Strikes me (like the FTPA) as creating unintended consequences - cementing a bad leader in place because MPs are scared they will have to face a GE if they move to depose them.
But I'm not sure what the solution is. I do think Truss' election has pushed the envelope compared to previous mid-parliament leadership takeovers because she has been so forceful about her view that the governments before her have been wrong on economic policy - and decided to steer the ship away from it. Perhaps she is feeling the consequences of this in the polls though. Doesn't help the country in the interim, mind.
Give everyone a vote in the election process when the governing party changes leader?
Best solution: elect the new PM in a multi-round vote among MPs of all parties. If they can't pick a leader of the country, what is the point of having MPs?
There's some logic in that.
No there really isn't. Unless of course you think all MPs should vote on all party leaders. And of course the mischief that will result from that is exactly what our Russo-phile friend Hello is after.
The Governing party leader should be picked by the MPs of the party concerned. Once that has been decided there can be a compulsory Vote of Confidence in Parliament to confirm that person as PM.
I still prefer a compulsory GE within 3 months of a new PM.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
Are you deliberately forgetting that the cut in basic rate is more than wiped out by the failure to raise the personal allowance in line with inflation though?
A lot of thickies only look at the headline rate and not what it is being applied to
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Re minimum wage. We do have a bizarre situation in this country where the minimum wage is not enough to live on and therefore has to be subsidised by UC.
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Yep exactly my point. This is a result of the Working Tax credits system introduced by Brown. It actively encourages employers to pay below living wage rates in the knowledge that the difference will be made up by the Government, so avoiding people refusing to work for them.
The Government should force employers to pay a living wage. And if the employers say they can't afford to then clearly their business model is not viable and they should be allowed to fail. Though I actually doubt many would.
Rather curiously the old Speenhamland System of the late C18/early C19 is very similar to the UC system. Though in that case (and indeed here, too) it was the taxpayers in general who ended up subsidising the rich landowners and farmers by topping up their workforces.
Wage subsidies always end up helping the big guy, not the small guy because the big guy suddenly finds they can pay people less.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
Are you deliberately forgetting that the cut in basic rate is more than wiped out by the failure to raise the personal allowance in line with inflation though?
A lot of thickies only look at the headline rate and not what it is being applied to
I see @HYUFD has avoided my slightly inconvenient question.
I think the 1922 committee have the right to alter the rules and if they felt they had enough support, they could either (a) suspend or abolish the right of party members to have the final say, or (b) require a very high number of MPs to nominate someone in order for them to go through to the first round (or alternatively to the final round).
(a) definitely not possible and I don't think they can alter the 15% rule either. Their power extends to the nuts and bolts of the election not to substance. Think of them as returning officers.
d they could choose to increase it further in later rounds. So what would stop them picking a much higher figure?
Secondly, if the committee doesn't have the power either to set a very high threshold or to suspend the membership vote entirely, who does? Would Tory MPs as a whole have the power to adopt a rule change (by what majority?) or would another body within the party have to do so? Either way it is at least conceivable that sufficient support for changing the rules could develop.
I believe it's in the party rules so the membership gets a vote.
Yes it’s in the party constitution so in order to remove the membership vote the …. Err…members have to vote to remove it.
Howard tried to remove the members vote before his resignation but the members rejected it.
Quite right too, the Conservative Party should not be the only main UK party which does not give its members any say in who is elected its leader.
MPs get to pick 2 candidates to put to the membership, if they cannot find 2 candidates they can live with then that is their fault
Old ways were better on this. But its hard to go back, as members are super entitled- as we've seen with corbynite tendencies they think they are more important than the country.
Though the current system does risk Labour, if it wins the next election and is still in power in a decade, replacing Starmer or a centrist successor like Streeting with a Corbynite candidate if that candidate wins the Labour membership, without needing to win a general election either.
The current system can therefore benefit the hard left as much as the hard right if a party is in power long enough
I have seen the idea floated of passing a law that a parliament automatically dissolves after a short period following a new PM taking office (mid-parliament).
I don't really like the idea much, it has to be said. Strikes me (like the FTPA) as creating unintended consequences - cementing a bad leader in place because MPs are scared they will have to face a GE if they move to depose them.
But I'm not sure what the solution is. I do think Truss' election has pushed the envelope compared to previous mid-parliament leadership takeovers because she has been so forceful about her view that the governments before her have been wrong on economic policy - and decided to steer the ship away from it. Perhaps she is feeling the consequences of this in the polls though. Doesn't help the country in the interim, mind.
Give everyone a vote in the election process when the governing party changes leader?
Best solution: elect the new PM in a multi-round vote among MPs of all parties. If they can't pick a leader of the country, what is the point of having MPs?
There's some logic in that.
No there really isn't. Unless of course you think all MPs should vote on all party leaders. And of course the mischief that will result from that is exactly what our Russo-phile friend Hello is after.
The Governing party leader should be picked by the MPs of the party concerned. Once that has been decided there can be a compulsory Vote of Confidence in Parliament to confirm that person as PM.
I still prefer a compulsory GE within 3 months of a new PM.
Why? It is back to the old argument. We elect MPs not PMs. Why should those MPs have to seek re-election when they still have a majority? If they can command a majority under the new leader then nothing has changed.
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
Have you come across the infinite hotel? Similar concepts.
I think the 1922 committee have the right to alter the rules and if they felt they had enough support, they could either (a) suspend or abolish the right of party members to have the final say, or (b) require a very high number of MPs to nominate someone in order for them to go through to the first round (or alternatively to the final round).
(a) definitely not possible and I don't think they can alter the 15% rule either. Their power extends to the nuts and bolts of the election not to substance. Think of them as returning officers.
d they could choose to increase it further in later rounds. So what would stop them picking a much higher figure?
Secondly, if the committee doesn't have the power either to set a very high threshold or to suspend the membership vote entirely, who does? Would Tory MPs as a whole have the power to adopt a rule change (by what majority?) or would another body within the party have to do so? Either way it is at least conceivable that sufficient support for changing the rules could develop.
I believe it's in the party rules so the membership gets a vote.
Yes it’s in the party constitution so in order to remove the membership vote the …. Err…members have to vote to remove it.
Howard tried to remove the members vote before his resignation but the members rejected it.
Quite right too, the Conservative Party should not be the only main UK party which does not give its members any say in who is elected its leader.
MPs get to pick 2 candidates to put to the membership, if they cannot find 2 candidates they can live with then that is their fault
Old ways were better on this. But its hard to go back, as members are super entitled- as we've seen with corbynite tendencies they think they are more important than the country.
Though the current system does risk Labour, if it wins the next election and is still in power in a decade, replacing Starmer or a centrist successor like Streeting with a Corbynite candidate if that candidate wins the Labour membership, without needing to win a general election either.
The current system can therefore benefit the hard left as much as the hard right if a party is in power long enough
I have seen the idea floated of passing a law that a parliament automatically dissolves after a short period following a new PM taking office (mid-parliament).
I don't really like the idea much, it has to be said. Strikes me (like the FTPA) as creating unintended consequences - cementing a bad leader in place because MPs are scared they will have to face a GE if they move to depose them.
But I'm not sure what the solution is. I do think Truss' election has pushed the envelope compared to previous mid-parliament leadership takeovers because she has been so forceful about her view that the governments before her have been wrong on economic policy - and decided to steer the ship away from it. Perhaps she is feeling the consequences of this in the polls though. Doesn't help the country in the interim, mind.
Give everyone a vote in the election process when the governing party changes leader?
Best solution: elect the new PM in a multi-round vote among MPs of all parties. If they can't pick a leader of the country, what is the point of having MPs?
There's some logic in that.
No there really isn't. Unless of course you think all MPs should vote on all party leaders. And of course the mischief that will result from that is exactly what our Russo-phile friend Hello is after.
The Governing party leader should be picked by the MPs of the party concerned. Once that has been decided there can be a compulsory Vote of Confidence in Parliament to confirm that person as PM.
I still prefer a compulsory GE within 3 months of a new PM.
Why? It is back to the old argument. We elect MPs not PMs. Why should those MPs have to seek re-election when they still have a majority? If they can command a majority under the new leader then nothing has changed.
Legally and constitutionally I absolutely agree. But most punters think they vote for a prime minister or a party. And the Truss ELE has made them think there is a massive pisstake being done and they are the victims...
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
Have you come across the infinite hotel? Similar concepts.
Yes. That was in the programme as well. Also the rather sobering fact that we will all come back as Liz Truss for ever.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
There would, of course, need to be a personal capital allowance. Whether that would be high enough to see you through a downturn depends on your other assets and the lifestyle to which you are accustomed, I guess.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
Are you deliberately forgetting that the cut in basic rate is more than wiped out by the failure to raise the personal allowance in line with inflation though?
A lot of thickies only look at the headline rate and not what it is being applied to
Nobody earning under £12,570 pays any income tax at all and those earning up to £50,270 ie most voters have just had an income tax cut.
It is the highest earners who have not seen any cut in the higher rate of income tax they are paying after this budget and the Kwarteng u turn
I think whoever wins the next election will have to grasp the nettle of DB pensions. It will be unpopular among those who believe they "have worked hard all their lives" but then again we can't bankrupt the nation to pander to a small group of already pretty well of people. Just as the WASPI women felt hard done by because a historical wrong was righted, DB pensioners will also feel hard done by because the government and industry made promises they couldn't keep 40 years ago on retirement income.
The next party in power will need to close all DB pension schemes and come up with a fairish formula for converting existing DB pensions to DC based on the asset levels within those DB pension schemes. Though I have no idea how that works in practice given that DB schemes are non-contributory.
Simply, neither the state nor private industry can afford to pay retirees 50-80% of their final salary until the day they die along with everything else and for industry continuing to invest in the business.
Ultimately, we need a government who is willing to tell 60+ people that things are going to be a lot more difficult and they'll need to work to 70+ if they want to keep their existing lifestyle because the nation can't afford to fund it.
What DB pensions are paying 80% of final salary?! And how many DB pensions are there still left? Surely most DB schemes have already closed and switched to DC.
Pensions are an issue, but shouldn't we talk about raising the pension age first?
My sister was juggling the costs of one briefly at Network Rail that paid up to 80% of final salary so they are definitely out there, I think that one is still open too.
It's not about closing the schemes, although that is also necessary, it's restating the existing ones that are due to pay out after 2030 (which gives people time to plan) into DC and all of them to DC by 2040. Existing recipients will have to take a hit.
That NR pension - it seems to be the usual 1/60 x year served x annual salary. She must be working for 48 years and/or paying in extra and/or deferring.
Why would closing DB pensions schemes be a priority for the next government?
And on what basis could the government legitimately force the conversion of "existing DB pensions to DC based on the asset levels within those DB pension schemes"?
For private companies it's entirely a matter for them. For public companies, well yes, HMG might decide it needs to close DB schemes for new entrants and stop the further accrual of DB rights but they cannot simply steal away the rights already accrued.
Because DB pensions are bankrupting the nation. It's an absolutely gigantic liability no one is willing to face up to yet it looms large over the economy.
Doesn't the cost of the liability depend heavily on gilt yield rates?
And higher gilt yields result in higher taxes on working age people to pay the interest bill. It is another form of transferring wealth from working age people to retirees.
I don't see how HMG could steal away DB rights already accrued. It would be theft, pure and simple.
The could legislate to close all DB schemes to new entrants and for further accruals but that's all.
How much do you think the unfunded liability is across the UK? Are there any official stats?
I think the assumption is that they probably can, if the affected groups are just picked off one by one.
It agree that it will be a very bad injustice though. I know lots of people who do extremely good work in the civil service, who have passed over more lucrative jobs in the private sector, and the opportunity of diversifying their career; because they made assumptions about the pension they would receive upon retirement.
There would be an absolutely massive fight over this. Even Cameron and Osborne didn't try it on.
Of course ultimately HMG can do whatever they legislate to do. But if you go down that road they could just steal everybody's possessions.
I have a feeling that has been tried before but ultimately the Soviet system proved not too successful.
They do, its called taxation.
The simple compromise would be to put a tax surcharge on pensions. We have NI on earnt income, yet leave pensions untouched for NI. So lets have double the current NI rate charged on pension income, triple on DB pensions.
Pensioners won't be so keen to vote through NI tax rises then anymore.
Sounding insane now, Bart. Why so aggrieved by DB pensions?
So having a tax on people who work for a living is rational, but having a tax on people who don't is "insane"?
DB pensions are theft. It was voting yourself good future incomes but without putting to one side the contributions required to pay for it.
That today's workers are expect to pay for DB pensions of retirees, but won't get that themselves, is theft pure and simple from today's workers, by the retirees.
This is seriously batshit, barty. A DB pension is between employee and employer, it's contractual and it is just deferred salary. Nobody voted it for themselves, they contracted for it. I thought you were the number 1 fan of The Rule Of Law? Are you confusing it with the state pension?
Yes and Christmas savings fund Farepak had contractual obligations but not the money to pay for it.
Anyone on a Defined Benefit pension should get that benefit paid out in full as long as the savings they or their employer put aside in the past into their pension pot covers the liabilities. If it doesn't, they shouldn't be bailed out by the people working today who aren't getting a DB themselves.
If they were promised a DB but the money isn't there for it, then they should be told it was mis-sold to them.
That’s inequitable though as companies often deliberately smoothed the cost by delaying funding (in the hope that rising equity markets would reduce the liability)
The issue has been regulation that has required addressing the underfunding of pension promises ahead of virtually any other application of funds. I can see it having priority over dividends or returns to shareholders, but it shouldn’t be prioritised over investment in the business
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
Have you come across the infinite hotel? Similar concepts.
Yes. That was in the programme as well. Also the rather sobering fact that we will all come back as Liz Truss for ever.
Yep I was put onto the infinite hotel by my son who loves all that sort of stuff. Who knew that a hotel with an infinite number of rooms could actually be full.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
I think the 1922 committee have the right to alter the rules and if they felt they had enough support, they could either (a) suspend or abolish the right of party members to have the final say, or (b) require a very high number of MPs to nominate someone in order for them to go through to the first round (or alternatively to the final round).
(a) definitely not possible and I don't think they can alter the 15% rule either. Their power extends to the nuts and bolts of the election not to substance. Think of them as returning officers.
d they could choose to increase it further in later rounds. So what would stop them picking a much higher figure?
Secondly, if the committee doesn't have the power either to set a very high threshold or to suspend the membership vote entirely, who does? Would Tory MPs as a whole have the power to adopt a rule change (by what majority?) or would another body within the party have to do so? Either way it is at least conceivable that sufficient support for changing the rules could develop.
I believe it's in the party rules so the membership gets a vote.
Yes it’s in the party constitution so in order to remove the membership vote the …. Err…members have to vote to remove it.
Howard tried to remove the members vote before his resignation but the members rejected it.
Quite right too, the Conservative Party should not be the only main UK party which does not give its members any say in who is elected its leader.
MPs get to pick 2 candidates to put to the membership, if they cannot find 2 candidates they can live with then that is their fault
Old ways were better on this. But its hard to go back, as members are super entitled- as we've seen with corbynite tendencies they think they are more important than the country.
Though the current system does risk Labour, if it wins the next election and is still in power in a decade, replacing Starmer or a centrist successor like Streeting with a Corbynite candidate if that candidate wins the Labour membership, without needing to win a general election either.
The current system can therefore benefit the hard left as much as the hard right if a party is in power long enough
I have seen the idea floated of passing a law that a parliament automatically dissolves after a short period following a new PM taking office (mid-parliament).
I don't really like the idea much, it has to be said. Strikes me (like the FTPA) as creating unintended consequences - cementing a bad leader in place because MPs are scared they will have to face a GE if they move to depose them.
But I'm not sure what the solution is. I do think Truss' election has pushed the envelope compared to previous mid-parliament leadership takeovers because she has been so forceful about her view that the governments before her have been wrong on economic policy - and decided to steer the ship away from it. Perhaps she is feeling the consequences of this in the polls though. Doesn't help the country in the interim, mind.
Give everyone a vote in the election process when the governing party changes leader?
Best solution: elect the new PM in a multi-round vote among MPs of all parties. If they can't pick a leader of the country, what is the point of having MPs?
There's some logic in that.
No there really isn't. Unless of course you think all MPs should vote on all party leaders. And of course the mischief that will result from that is exactly what our Russo-phile friend Hello is after.
The Governing party leader should be picked by the MPs of the party concerned. Once that has been decided there can be a compulsory Vote of Confidence in Parliament to confirm that person as PM.
I still prefer a compulsory GE within 3 months of a new PM.
Why? It is back to the old argument. We elect MPs not PMs. Why should those MPs have to seek re-election when they still have a majority? If they can command a majority under the new leader then nothing has changed.
Legally and constitutionally I absolutely agree. But most punters think they vote for a prime minister or a party. And the Truss ELE has made them think there is a massive pisstake being done and they are the victims...
So as I have said before we educate the electorate rather than giving more power to the parties (which of course ultimately means taking it away from the electorate).
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
And when you need it you need it. You can't wait for Flintstone Fund to decide in a few months it will aftet all let you cash in your property bond, etc.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
One thing that's special about capital is that it is created solely in response to economic incentives, unlike labour or land. Put simply, people work whereas nobody is forced to borrow to invest in a business. As a result, practically every developed nation taxes capital more lightly than skilled workers - taxes on low earners typically being low as a cheap gesture toward equality.
The common factor is large numbers of patients who cannot be discharged to Social Care. We are only just starting into autumn.
Surely the perfect time for KT and the Fuckup Gang to (a) cut the NHS budget and (b) provide sneering responses to why all decent people should already have private insurance.
Big vote winner. People die. So what. Say most right-minded people. They vote to see their granny pointlessly die.
Some years back Mrs C had a look at the private medical insurance my parents had taken out. She knows about those things, and instantly spotted that the benefits provided were in inverse proportion to the risk combined with morbidity involved. For instance, there was generous provision for being in hospital for a week with an ingrown toenail, but a heart attack? Forget it. I exaggerate slightly, but that was the basic principle, and the sort of marketing going on.
Anything life threatening and you're in the NHS anyway.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
There would, of course, need to be a personal capital allowance. Whether that would be high enough to see you through a downturn depends on your other assets and the lifestyle to which you are accustomed, I guess.
Yep. Sadly in my business downturns are all too common. I think we have just come out of the sixth since I started my career, although to be fair I have managed to work through most of them (although in two cases that did mean going to work in places where you needed to have kidnap insurance and special security advisors).
You know the sorts of places. Glasgow and the such like
I'm reluctant to get into four Yorkshiremen territory, but I doubt if there was ever a golden age, where young people enjoyed full employment, high wages, low taxes, easy access to credit, rising house prices (but still keeping pace with wages, and a great free education.
Well, there may have been a sweet spot, from about 1985 to 2008, but that was it.
What a lot of this is about is comparing the prospects of young people from upper middle class backgrounds in the past, with the prospects of young people generally, today.
I bought my first house, a small place in a provincial city, at the grand old age of 23 back in 1987. I had saved the deposit of the 'massive' sum of £2500 because the IT company I worked for had a project in crisis and they paid overtime. I worked most Saturdays for a year or so.
The house cost £27k.
A lost world to today's up and coming generation.
I'd say you would have been most unusual, even in 1987.
Plenty of your contemporaries would have been wrestling with finding a job.
1987 was precisely when I bought my first home; I was 24. A one- bed flat on the Archway Road, which cost about £70,000 as I recall. I’d been working for three years and just had a pay rise to about £13,-something, I think. Reasonable but not that far above average wages for a reasonable job in London at the time. I can’t remember the details of the financing but I only had whatever I had managed to save during my three years’ working.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
There would, of course, need to be a personal capital allowance. Whether that would be high enough to see you through a downturn depends on your other assets and the lifestyle to which you are accustomed, I guess.
Yep. Sadly in my business downturns are all too common. I think we have just come out of the sixth since I started my career, although to be fair I have managed to work through most of them (although in two cases that did mean going to work in places where you needed to have kidnap insurance and special security advisors).
You know the sorts of places. Glasgow and the such like
Indeed, you need local advice as to what colour of jacket to wear. Especially on Saturday. Very sensible.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
Yep I get that. I suppose my comment was only to make the case that not all capital is just sat there to make people money. There are lots of other reasons to have savings, many of which ultimately save the Government money.
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
The common factor is large numbers of patients who cannot be discharged to Social Care. We are only just starting into autumn.
Surely the perfect time for KT and the Fuckup Gang to (a) cut the NHS budget and (b) provide sneering responses to why all decent people should already have private insurance.
Big vote winner. People die. So what. Say most right-minded people. They vote to see their granny pointlessly die.
Some years back Mrs C had a look at the private medical insurance my parents had taken out. She knows about those things, and instantly spotted that the benefits provided were in inverse proportion to the risk combined with morbidity involved. For instance, there was generous provision for being in hospital for a week with an ingrown toenail, but a heart attack? Forget it. I exaggerate slightly, but that was the basic principle, and the sort of marketing going on.
Anything life threatening and you're in the NHS anyway.
As Mrs C also noted!
"The common factor is large numbers of patients who cannot be discharged to Social Care."
Both parties have failed on this over the last twenty years. It is a disaster area.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
Are you deliberately forgetting that the cut in basic rate is more than wiped out by the failure to raise the personal allowance in line with inflation though?
A lot of thickies only look at the headline rate and not what it is being applied to
Nobody earning under £12,570 pays any income tax at all and those earning up to £50,270 ie most voters have just had an income tax cut.
It is the highest earners who have not seen any cut in the higher rate of income tax they are paying after this budget and the Kwarteng u turn
And what about NI? Much more benefit for the high earners than low earners in that cut.
New York employs a whole army of traffic cops who stand at major intersections directing the traffic - all of these junctions are fully signalled, and I wonder whether it’s that NYC drivers aren’t responsible enough to obey traffic signals without someone from NYPD standing there watching them, or that the road layout and signalling has design flaws that mean it needs a cop to sort out the inevitable snarl ups, or perhaps there’s a union agreement protecting these otherwise pointless jobs?
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
Did it go into the stuff about big infinity and ordinary infinity? (Cantor and all that)
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
There's loads of wierd things with infinity. In the first term of my maths degree there was a (very easy) proof that the size of the set of all the positive real numbers is the same the size of the set all all the real numbers (positive and negative). That is clearly nuts, there should be twice as many real numbers as positive real numbers, but on the other hand it makes sense.
You just have to get used to "infinity=the twilight zone"
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
There was a BBC 4 show a few years back on that which similarly blew my tiny brain. An infinity of odd numbers+ an infinity of even numbers = 2 x infinity... And more.
New York employs a whole army of traffic cops who stand at major intersections directing the traffic - all of these junctions are fully signalled, and I wonder whether it’s that NYC drivers aren’t responsible enough to obey traffic signals without someone from NYPD standing there watching them, or that the road layout and signalling has design flaws that mean it needs a cop to sort out the inevitable snarl ups, or perhaps there’s a union agreement protecting these otherwise pointless jobs?
Having traffic police directing traffic at junctions is way more efficient than traffic lights.
They can spontanously adapt to the traffic needs. They can also let "important" vehicles like busses through quickly even if they are 4 or 6 vehicles back from the stop line.
I'm sure that doing this at peak times has an economic benefit to the city way above the cost of employing the police officers.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
What's a 'high number' and how much you need for a safety net would be open to debate though.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
No need to make it illegal. But change it round so the recipients are taxed instead of the estate. Give a free lifetime allowance, perhaps equal to 5 years average earnings. Anything beyond that it is taxed at marginal rates of income tax.
Before we get into the intricacies of local election swing I have just watched a Netflix programme about Infinity. Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
There was a BBC 4 show a few years back on that which similarly blew my tiny brain. An infinity of odd numbers+ an infinity of even numbers = 2 x infinity... And more.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
These days inheritance comes so late to most people that it’s not really the deciding factor in privilege being passed down generations. It’s what parents do to give their children a leg up earlier in life that makes the difference. That’s much harder (impossible) to prohibit unless you take away all children at birth and put them in an institution.
Liz Truss’s chief of staff was involved in an alleged criminal plot to subvert the democracy of a US territory. Mark Fullbrook was a subject then witness in FBI investigation and formally interviewed
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
New York employs a whole army of traffic cops who stand at major intersections directing the traffic - all of these junctions are fully signalled, and I wonder whether it’s that NYC drivers aren’t responsible enough to obey traffic signals without someone from NYPD standing there watching them, or that the road layout and signalling has design flaws that mean it needs a cop to sort out the inevitable snarl ups, or perhaps there’s a union agreement protecting these otherwise pointless jobs?
Having traffic police directing traffic at junctions is way more efficient than traffic lights.
They can spontanously adapt to the traffic needs. They can also let "important" vehicles like busses through quickly even if they are 4 or 6 vehicles back from the stop line.
I'm sure that doing this at peak times has an economic benefit to the city way above the cost of employing the police officers.
Interesting point. Would be fascinating to model the cost-benefit.
New York employs a whole army of traffic cops who stand at major intersections directing the traffic - all of these junctions are fully signalled, and I wonder whether it’s that NYC drivers aren’t responsible enough to obey traffic signals without someone from NYPD standing there watching them, or that the road layout and signalling has design flaws that mean it needs a cop to sort out the inevitable snarl ups, or perhaps there’s a union agreement protecting these otherwise pointless jobs?
Surely if they are directing traffic they are not 'pointless'?
Labour writes to cabinet secretary demanding answers about Liz Truss's aide Mark Fullbrook joining No10 via lobbying firm. Raises Qs about "potential financial advantages, conflict of interest, national security and access to sensitive government information". https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1578128676910235655
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
What's a 'high number' and how much you need for a safety net would be open to debate though.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
Why ignore residence and pension pots? Very unfair on renters who perhaps save through isas rather than pensions.
Start much higher imo. £5m-£10m.
Separate LVT replacing council tax to catch the reasonably well off but not multi millionaires.
New York employs a whole army of traffic cops who stand at major intersections directing the traffic - all of these junctions are fully signalled, and I wonder whether it’s that NYC drivers aren’t responsible enough to obey traffic signals without someone from NYPD standing there watching them, or that the road layout and signalling has design flaws that mean it needs a cop to sort out the inevitable snarl ups, or perhaps there’s a union agreement protecting these otherwise pointless jobs?
Having traffic police directing traffic at junctions is way more efficient than traffic lights.
They can spontanously adapt to the traffic needs. They can also let "important" vehicles like busses through quickly even if they are 4 or 6 vehicles back from the stop line.
I'm sure that doing this at peak times has an economic benefit to the city way above the cost of employing the police officers.
Interesting point. Would be fascinating to model the cost-benefit.
What hope for AI if it can't even manage traffic more effectively than a person?
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
These days inheritance comes so late to most people that it’s not really the deciding factor in privilege being passed down generations. It’s what parents do to give their children a leg up earlier in life that makes the difference. That’s much harder (impossible) to prohibit unless you take away all children at birth and put them in an institution.
Of course, in practice it could never be done.
But in principle, I can’t see much upside in allowing people to pass their wealth down the generations.
Meanwhile I am sitting eating my Korean chicken (Korea should ally with Germany; together they could surely corner the global cabbage market?) watching PBS taking the piss out of Liz Truss. Even lowly hotel receptionists here know that when you mention that you’re paying the bill with our devalued £££, the only appropriate response is a look of deepest sympathy.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
Absolutely not. That is the very opposite of conservatism. Every generation wants to help and support their family. We are not mere economic units to be equalised by the state
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
What's a 'high number' and how much you need for a safety net would be open to debate though.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
Why ignore residence and pension pots? Very unfair on renters who perhaps save through isas rather than pensions.
Start much higher imo. £5m-£10m.
Separate LVT replacing council tax to catch the reasonably well off but not multi millionaires.
Well, it's another potential approach although £5m - £10m per individual is far too high imo.
Any wealth tax approach needs to be modelled and checked for unintended consequences of course.
ISAs is an interesting one. Some would argue they shouldn't be included but the commitment was only that you wouldn't pay tax on the income and the growth. So I would include them (much to my personal disadvantage).
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Why? Why should some people get an advantage over others because of their accident of birth.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
What's a 'high number' and how much you need for a safety net would be open to debate though.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
Why ignore residence and pension pots? Very unfair on renters who perhaps save through isas rather than pensions.
Start much higher imo. £5m-£10m.
Separate LVT replacing council tax to catch the reasonably well off but not multi millionaires.
I'd include both primary residence (Asset value less mortgage) and pension pot (Present value if DC; implied NPV if DB) in the mix and start the threshold at £2 million/person.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
What's a 'high number' and how much you need for a safety net would be open to debate though.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
Why ignore residence and pension pots? Very unfair on renters who perhaps save through isas rather than pensions.
Start much higher imo. £5m-£10m.
Separate LVT replacing council tax to catch the reasonably well off but not multi millionaires.
Well, it's another potential approach although £5m - £10m per individual is far too high imo.
Any wealth tax approach needs to be modelled and checked for unintended consequences of course.
ISAs is an interesting one. Some would argue they shouldn't be included but the commitment was only that you wouldn't pay tax on the income and the growth. So I would include them (much to my personal disadvantage).
Sure there is no commitment about wealth taxes on isas but nor is there one that we should not pay wealth taxes on houses or pensions either. Isas and pensions are broadly equivalent, just with different tax wrappers around them. They are both part of someones wealth.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
Absolutely not. That is the very opposite of conservatism. Every generation wants to help and support their family. We are not mere economic units to be equalised by the state
I want my children to learn to stand on their own two feet, not to be lazy bloodsuckers who simply inherit money. Luckily they both seem to be ok.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
What's a 'high number' and how much you need for a safety net would be open to debate though.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
Why ignore residence and pension pots? Very unfair on renters who perhaps save through isas rather than pensions.
Start much higher imo. £5m-£10m.
Separate LVT replacing council tax to catch the reasonably well off but not multi millionaires.
I'd include both primary residence (Asset value less mortgage) and pension pot (Present value if DC; implied NPV if DB) in the mix and start the threshold at £2 million/person.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
Absolutely not. That is the very opposite of conservatism. Every generation wants to help and support their family. We are not mere economic units to be equalised by the state
You say “very opposite of conservatism” as if it’s a bad thing.
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
Odd statement. DB pensions occur at all levels of income. For instance, plenty of manual workers at low levels.
Mrs Foxy has worked 30 years (some of it part time) in the NHS, and is a band 5 staff nurse. Her pension will be 6,500 per year. That isn't atypical, indeed many lower banded staff such as HCAs get less.
New York employs a whole army of traffic cops who stand at major intersections directing the traffic - all of these junctions are fully signalled, and I wonder whether it’s that NYC drivers aren’t responsible enough to obey traffic signals without someone from NYPD standing there watching them, or that the road layout and signalling has design flaws that mean it needs a cop to sort out the inevitable snarl ups, or perhaps there’s a union agreement protecting these otherwise pointless jobs?
You must have spent getting on for 5k to take a pet dog which looks like a deformed lamb on holiday to the USA with you?
Please continue to inform us of any examples of pointlessness you encounter on your travels.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
These days inheritance comes so late to most people that it’s not really the deciding factor in privilege being passed down generations. It’s what parents do to give their children a leg up earlier in life that makes the difference. That’s much harder (impossible) to prohibit unless you take away all children at birth and put them in an institution.
There is also the fact that many people now leave the inheritances to their grandchildren rather than their children, to give them a better start in life. It is another example of what I mentioned earlier about theories not taking human behaviour into account.
I still prefer a compulsory GE within 3 months of a new PM.
Why? It is back to the old argument. We elect MPs not PMs. Why should those MPs have to seek re-election when they still have a majority? If they can command a majority under the new leader then nothing has changed.
And of course we all know how effective arguing "nothing has changed" is in politics :-)
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
Yes but it depends on what it is being used for. So as a consultant I have built up a reasonable amount of savings for the days/months/years when I am without work. It is the prudent thing to do, and I would not be much chuffed if someone decided to start taxing those savings when I have already paid tax on them as earnings and I am just being sensible in saving for the inevitable downturns.
Surely you put that capital to work in equity markets etc... so it should earn you some income that offsets the tax.
Nope. Because it is money I can't afford to lose. So I don't invest it at all. It is a safety net, not an investment.
Ah fair enough, though I'd imagine any wealth tax would start at a pretty high number so any safety net wouldn't be taxable.
What's a 'high number' and how much you need for a safety net would be open to debate though.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
Why ignore residence and pension pots? Very unfair on renters who perhaps save through isas rather than pensions.
Start much higher imo. £5m-£10m.
Separate LVT replacing council tax to catch the reasonably well off but not multi millionaires.
Well, it's another potential approach although £5m - £10m per individual is far too high imo.
Any wealth tax approach needs to be modelled and checked for unintended consequences of course.
ISAs is an interesting one. Some would argue they shouldn't be included but the commitment was only that you wouldn't pay tax on the income and the growth. So I would include them (much to my personal disadvantage).
Sure there is no commitment about wealth taxes on isas but nor is there one that we should not pay wealth taxes on houses or pensions either. Isas and pensions are broadly equivalent, just with different tax wrappers around them. They are both part of someones wealth.
Yep. You've convinced me.
And for the 'old lady has to sell up home to pay wealth tax' argument there's already a proven 'future charge' process used for social care costs, so that she can defer the WT until she ceases to own the house.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Why? Why should some people get an advantage over others because of their accident of birth.
Because life is not fair and all attempts to make it fair in the way you want usually end up making it worse. I work to make sure my kids have a better start than I had. That is human nature and you trying to deny it is frankly perverse.
And you really think that if people were banned from leaving an inheritance it would end up with the Government? All they would do would be to spend it on stuff the Government couldn't get their hands on and make sure there was nothing left for your state coffers. The vast majority of people resent paying tax even if they know it is for a purpose and they will certainly find a way around anything you might introduce to try and capture that money.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
Absolutely not. That is the very opposite of conservatism. Every generation wants to help and support their family. We are not mere economic units to be equalised by the state
I never mentioned being equalised. It’s about people being rewarded for their own effort and ability, rather than being able to coast on the back of previous generations.
There are various well known rich folks who have refused their offspring any inheritance on precisely these grounds. They want their children to use their own ability to earn their way in the world, without a free pass from inheritance.
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Why? Why should some people get an advantage over others because of their accident of birth.
Because that is the essence of conservatism. You are not a conservative so why should I care what you think about it?
All inheritances over £1 million are taxed anyway but conservatives believe families are best able to help the next generation not the state
The idea that taxes should be raised on capital, in order to be reduced on incomes is obviously sensible and fair.
I'm 55 now, and will likely inherit a shedload of money over the next twenty years, when it is merely something that is nice to have, rather than something that is important to my life. It would be far better if younger relatives were paying less income tax.
They already are, Kwarteng has kept the cut in the basic rate of income tax and the poorest don't pay any.
It is high earners still paying 45% of their income at the top rate in tax. Tories by definition believe in conserving capital above all, if you prefer to raise taxes on capital and cut them on income then you are really a Liberal not a Tory.
If you want to raise taxes on capital and income then you are a Socialist
There's nothing special about capital. It's there to be used.
And preserved for the next generation where possible
Society would be better if inheritance were made illegal and each generation had to start from scratch and earn their own way. Evaluate and discuss….
These days inheritance comes so late to most people that it’s not really the deciding factor in privilege being passed down generations. It’s what parents do to give their children a leg up earlier in life that makes the difference. That’s much harder (impossible) to prohibit unless you take away all children at birth and put them in an institution.
There is also the fact that many people now leave the inheritances to their grandchildren rather than their children, to give them a better start in life. It is another example of what I mentioned earlier about theories not taking human behaviour into account.
Inheritance (above a threshold) should be taxed as income by the recipient rather than on the estate. It would encourage it to be distributed more widely.
Comments
That UC is effectively subsidising low paying employers and private landlords.
Quite a large share of that it is the government which is the employer anyways.
Land - fair enough.
Inheritance - ditto.
Money earned and put aside for early retirement, a rainy day, or a time when you can actually spend it? I don't think that's fair. Our savings rates are bad enough already.
The Governing party leader should be picked by the MPs of the party concerned. Once that has been decided there can be a compulsory Vote of Confidence in Parliament to confirm that person as PM.
The Government should force employers to pay a living wage. And if the employers say they can't afford to then clearly their business model is not viable and they should be allowed to fail. Though I actually doubt many would.
Mind-blowing. For example, start with an equation; Infinity=Infinity. Then add Infinity to one side; so Infinity = Infinity+ Infinity. Then subtract Infinity from both sides. We finally have Infinity= 0. Weird.
Labour certainly went off the rails in London back then; the story of how Camden clawed its way back to actually being a relatively respected council, even within London, would make a great second volume - which of course Wauchope would never write.
Many of the figures from Camden politics back then managed to reinvent themselves for changing times, and went on to have political careers at national level - others stuck around in Camden and made a lasting contribution to local politics. Wauchope achieved neither.
“Whose pensions are we talking about? And essentially, they are goal-plated, defined-benefit private-insurance schemes for the top 10 to one percent of the British population. So one could wonder, Why do we maintain a pension system that’s structured like this? In which essentially, a pension fund chases yield very aggressively because they are struggling to make this particular part of the upper-middle-class welfare state work.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/federal-reserve-recession-inflation-financial-crisis-tooze.html
https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1577810254946963456
It is the highest earners who have not seen any cut in the higher rate of income tax they are paying after this budget and the Kwarteng u turn
The issue has been regulation that has required addressing the underfunding of pension promises ahead of virtually any other application of funds. I can see it having priority over dividends or returns to shareholders, but it shouldn’t be prioritised over investment in the business
You know the sorts of places. Glasgow and the such like
Both parties have failed on this over the last twenty years. It is a disaster area.
You just have to get used to "infinity=the twilight zone"
An infinity of odd numbers+ an infinity of even numbers = 2 x infinity...
And more.
They can spontanously adapt to the traffic needs. They can also let "important" vehicles like busses through quickly even if they are 4 or 6 vehicles back from the stop line.
I'm sure that doing this at peak times has an economic benefit to the city way above the cost of employing the police officers.
There are already established rules for assessing capital, applied, ironically, to benefit claimants. £6k is all they are allowed. (Although, a property you live in and personal possessions are disregarded.)
Edit: Just to be clear I think the capital allowance would need to be a lot higher for Wealth Tax - say £250k per individual, ignoring their own residence, also ignoring pension pots.
Take a bow Gregor Cantor
Liz Truss’s chief of staff was involved in an alleged criminal plot to subvert the democracy of a US territory. Mark Fullbrook was a subject then witness in FBI investigation and formally interviewed
He hasn’t been questioned in the open — until now https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1578124647408828424
Labour writes to cabinet secretary demanding answers about Liz Truss's aide Mark Fullbrook joining No10 via lobbying firm. Raises Qs about "potential financial advantages, conflict of interest, national security and access to sensitive government information". https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1578128676910235655
Start much higher imo. £5m-£10m.
Separate LVT replacing council tax to catch the reasonably well off but not multi millionaires.
But in principle, I can’t see much upside in allowing people to pass their wealth down the generations.
Meanwhile I am sitting eating my Korean chicken (Korea should ally with Germany; together they could surely corner the global cabbage market?) watching PBS taking the piss out of Liz Truss. Even lowly hotel receptionists here know that when you mention that you’re paying the bill with our devalued £££, the only appropriate response is a look of deepest sympathy.
Any wealth tax approach needs to be modelled and checked for unintended consequences of course.
ISAs is an interesting one. Some would argue they shouldn't be included but the commitment was only that you wouldn't pay tax on the income and the growth. So I would include them (much to my personal disadvantage).
FFS
Brexiteers, Tory donors, the former Daily Mail editor. Far more new Tory than Labour Lords. (Subject to last minute changes).
Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/06/leaked-list-reveals-brexiteers-tory-donors-due-get-peerages/ https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1578131993925222400/photo/1
Please continue to inform us of any examples of pointlessness you encounter on your travels.
It’s the more regular political peerages which he drew up and has been in the pipeline for months.
Final list is with No10. Publication due within days. Late changes possible - some tweaks have been made since earlier in yr.
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1578134886732414977
No 10 has blocked a public information campaign encouraging people to save energy
Jacob Rees-Mogg signed off plans for campaign with potential £15m budget in recent days
No 10 rejected it today amid claims Truss is ideologically opposed https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1578134974422814724
And for the 'old lady has to sell up home to pay wealth tax' argument there's already a proven 'future charge' process used for social care costs, so that she can defer the WT until she ceases to own the house.
And you really think that if people were banned from leaving an inheritance it would end up with the Government? All they would do would be to spend it on stuff the Government couldn't get their hands on and make sure there was nothing left for your state coffers. The vast majority of people resent paying tax even if they know it is for a purpose and they will certainly find a way around anything you might introduce to try and capture that money.
There are various well known rich folks who have refused their offspring any inheritance on precisely these grounds. They want their children to use their own ability to earn their way in the world, without a free pass from inheritance.
All inheritances over £1 million are taxed anyway but conservatives believe families are best able to help the next generation not the state