So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
My own view is that if the Government is spending 45% of national income, that ought to be quite sufficient to fund public services. Attlee’s government spent a lower proportion.
I have no desire at all to pay more in tax than I presently do.
Some seem to think gdp should belong to the government and they just award us some pocket money. I cant see how almost 50% isnt enough
It depends if you believe that public sector productivity can only fall, not rise.
It’s quite funny, Leon is a writer, a journalist, a player. He comes on with some controversial post about UFOs, crazy dogs, quasi-negativity to Ukraine and everyone spends a few posts telling him nobody cares and then two threads discussing the posts he makes.
Probably doesn’t really remotely care about the point he’s making but loves that everyone then dances to what he posts.
He’s a master of diverting any thread to his whim and everyone follows. He’s laughing. Trouts on a hook. I doff my cap to his puppetry.
Well you can all be diverted by my How-to-use-your-garden-to-torture-people post coupled with Guess The Tree. I've already got one volunteer cook out of it, and Leon has never had tha!
I'd do a barbecue for Leon, as long as he agreed to 2 conditions:
(1) He comes to Newent for it;
(2) While there, he agreed to say something nice about the town and publicise it in the Spectator.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
Did either side surrender in Korea? No. They just agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line. And nothing else
Has Russia agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line? Has Russia ever kept to an agreement it has previously made with Ukraine?
The answer to both questions is emphatically, no. So Ukraine has to keep fighting. And in that case shouldn't we give it the best chance of success?
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
Did either side surrender in Korea? No. They just agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line. And nothing else
Has Russia agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line? Has Russia ever kept to an agreement it has previously made with Ukraine?
The answer to both questions is emphatically, no. So Ukraine has to keep fighting. And in that case shouldn't we give it the best chance of success?
I’ve given you my answers. It’s fairly obvious that this requires Russian agreement
As Russia doesn’t look like it’s in the mood for peace talks then yes, Ukraine has to keep fighting for now - and we must support them
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I can point to examples here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. I would have saved money
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
Go ahead and try to sell it, doubt you can people are already squeezed and wont buy the touted bollocks of it coming of the top 1% because they know its a lie
We don’t have manifestos yet, but parties who are likely to increase tax (albeit not hugely) are on 62% in the polls.
And none of those manifesto's will have tax rises because we already give too much to the fucking state. It is time the state stopped doing a lot of shit
Labour had already said there will be at least one tax rise in its manifesto. I would expect LibDem and Green manifestos to be similar. I don’t think they’ll lay out big tax rises, but they’ll have some tax rises.
It seems to me that it’s not that the people won’t support any tax rises, it’s that you don’t support any tax rises. I respect your views. You are free to vote for a party that favours cutting what the state does. (Reform UK?) But I think we should all separate what we want from what we think the public will vote for.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. If Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
Why is that the only outcome for peace? That is a victory for Russia.
The basis for negotiations if Ukraine win the war is that Ukraine regains Crimea and the Donbas, Russia recognises Ukraine's independence, integrity and sovereignty, and the question to negotiate is what kind of reparations that Russia owes Ukraine to compensate for this failed invasion. And maybe how and when Russia will hand over Putin etc to the International Criminal Court.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
What about Ukraine doesn’t win. A hardline President follows Zelensky and Ukraine explodes a nuclear bomb and announces they are now a nuclear power again.
No elections while Ukraine is at war.
So for your scenario to play out Zelensky would have to be assassinated.
I suppose that's not ridiculously unlikely given that Russia has been making every effort to do so.
Or he steps down. Or is “retired”. And elections are held.
Of Zelensky looks at what happened and says “Why shouldn’t we?”
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
My own view is that if the Government is spending 45% of national income, that ought to be quite sufficient to fund public services. Attlee’s government spent a lower proportion.
I have no desire at all to pay more in tax than I presently do.
I agree that the Government is spending money poorly. I’m happy to start with getting rid of this Government and spending the current tax take better.
There seems to be increasing talk among Trump-adjacent people about the inevitability of going to war with the drug cartels. It could be a weak point for Biden in the general election.
Well they'll have a 'war' vacancy given they plan to stop fighting Putin.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
Did either side surrender in Korea? No. They just agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line. And nothing else
Has Russia agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line? Has Russia ever kept to an agreement it has previously made with Ukraine?
The answer to both questions is emphatically, no. So Ukraine has to keep fighting. And in that case shouldn't we give it the best chance of success?
I’ve given you my answers. It’s fairly obvious that this requires Russian agreement
As Russia doesn’t look like it’s in the mood for peace talks then yes, Ukraine has to keep fighting for now - and we must support them
Not sure how well-informed this analysis is, but it has been flagged by Francis Fukuyama, as giving the reasons why Ukraine will prevail.
"The dire situation for Russians will move then from critical to hopeless when Ukrainians break through the lines and storm to the Azov Sea. In the early stages of this open war, Russians focused on securing the Azov coast in order to protect their bases in Crimea. With the Ukrainian arsenal such as HIMARS, Stormshadows/Scalp-EG and likely soon TAURUS, as well, Ukrainian control of whole Zaporizhzhia will make the Russian occupation in Crimea untenable. It will be similar to Germany 1944 where a fight might still continue another year (which it did), but it wouldn't change the outcome. The liberation of Zaporizhzhia by Ukrainians forces equals Russia's strategic defeat. Both sides know that. "
There seems to be increasing talk among Trump-adjacent people about the inevitability of going to war with the drug cartels. It could be a weak point for Biden in the general election.
War on the drug cartels plays well with his base, but surely most rational US voters see it as a completely bollocks idea. We tried a War on Drugs: drugs won and the voters noticed. Much of the country supports drug legalisation. Meanwhile, American isolationists aren’t going to be very excited by the idea of invading another country. Old-school Republicans are horrified at the nonsense of the idea.
Drug legalisation is absolutely impossible and insanely dangerous in the face of new drugs like fentanyl and tranq
Do try and keep up
Legalise, regulate, and tax the hell out of every drug. Works well for alcohol and tobacco, why not the others?
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I can point to examples here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. I would have saved money
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
Go ahead and try to sell it, doubt you can people are already squeezed and wont buy the touted bollocks of it coming of the top 1% because they know its a lie
We don’t have manifestos yet, but parties who are likely to increase tax (albeit not hugely) are on 62% in the polls.
And none of those manifesto's will have tax rises because we already give too much to the fucking state. It is time the state stopped doing a lot of shit
Labour had already said there will be at least one tax rise in its manifesto. I would expect LibDem and Green manifestos to be similar. I don’t think they’ll lay out big tax rises, but they’ll have some tax rises.
It seems to me that it’s not that the people won’t support any tax rises, it’s that you don’t support any tax rises. I respect your views. You are free to vote for a party that favours cutting what the state does. (Reform UK?) But I think we should all separate what we want from what we think the public will vote for.
Whilst nobody likes paying more tax, the current model of trying to minimise government spending is why we have a load of dodgy buildings that we've spent years not fixing. And the political terror of tax rises is why governments look for gimmicks like threshold freezes and NI. They cause even more harm than an upfront rate rise would.
(And the squeeze is as much about the price of housing as anything else.)
Lord Woolton, Mister for Food, was taken one morning in November, 1940 on an official tour of a MoF local office in south London. But when they got there (according to LW in his diary)
"In Battersea, the town hall, which included the food office and all the records, had just been made into a mass of twisted iron. . . . we motored through miles of streets in all of which windows were broken, doors blown off, and their were huge areas in which houses had been completely wrecked."
Woolton's response was galvanizing MoF to organize an "Underground Food Train" as well as mobile canteens and stoves at street level. Including, indeed actively recruiting, volunteer canteens and other voluntary support - from home and abroad.
For example, envisioned combined ambulance/canteens including "the food supplies, kitchens, and everything that would produce the hot drinks and food that shocked people needed" in the aftermath of an air raid."
Great idea - but how to fund it? HMG had other pressing priorities, though Woolton did know of one particular donor to cover a small part of what he wanted.
Then in December, 1940, he had a meeting with the head of the "British War Relief Society of America" which was part of the pro-Allied "Bundles for Britain" movement in the USA, a year before Pearl Harbor.
"I have an idea for which I need your help," said the British businessman-turned-minister to the American businessman-turned-philanthropist.
"Each unit would consist of a mobile water-tanker that can carry up to 350 gallons, there would be two lorries each containing 6,000 means, two kitchen lorries with soup boilers and fuel, three mobile canteens, and five motor-cyclists who will liaise between the area in need and the local authorities."
Seeing that he'd definitely captured the American's interest, Woolton continued.
"I'd should like you to consider helping to fund the fleet. . . . I should add that there is one individual who has already pledged to personally fund eight of these vehicles. And I should say that it might be indiscreet of me to mention who she might be."
Woolton paused . . . then gave a studied glance at the framed picture on his desk, of himself next to Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother).
The response was immediate, and enthusiastic. "Lord Woolton," said the American, "we will fund the whole lot."
The (mostly) women staffing this rapid-response for air-raid relief were dubbed by Woolton, "Queen's Messengers" because as he explained to the King, "these women . . . will indeed be messengers of mercy."
For as Woolton said to the Queen, "the vast majority of the people think of you as a person who would speak the kindly word, and, if it fell within your power, would take the cup of soup to the needy person."
Startled, the Queen replied, "do you really think that people think of me like that, because it is so much what I want them to think. It's what I try to be."
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I can point to examples here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. I would have saved money
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
Go ahead and try to sell it, doubt you can people are already squeezed and wont buy the touted bollocks of it coming of the top 1% because they know its a lie
We don’t have manifestos yet, but parties who are likely to increase tax (albeit not hugely) are on 62% in the polls.
And none of those manifesto's will have tax rises because we already give too much to the fucking state. It is time the state stopped doing a lot of shit
Labour had already said there will be at least one tax rise in its manifesto. I would expect LibDem and Green manifestos to be similar. I don’t think they’ll lay out big tax rises, but they’ll have some tax rises.
It seems to me that it’s not that the people won’t support any tax rises, it’s that you don’t support any tax rises. I respect your views. You are free to vote for a party that favours cutting what the state does. (Reform UK?) But I think we should all separate what we want from what we think the public will vote for.
Whilst nobody likes paying more tax, the current model of trying to minimise government spending is why we have a load of dodgy buildings that we've spent years not fixing. And the political terror of tax rises is why governments look for gimmicks like threshold freezes and NI. They cause even more harm than an upfront rate rise would.
(And the squeeze is as much about the price of housing as anything else.)
OK, so, short term, the aim is to stop the current model of government by getting the Conservative Party out of power.
What's this fad of putting a roast dinner in a big pile in the middle of a soup bowl?
Have they run out of plates?
I didn't think of it as a soup bowl. More a plate with a large lip.
They gave me a knife and fork to eat with, anyway.
Well at least they didn't put it in a flower pot, a chip strainer or on a slate, all of which I have seen.
While we're on the subject, my pet hate is waiting staff interrupting the table conversation to ask 'is everything ok with your meal?' - usually in a tone of total disinterest.
The section on the Post office as "We're trusted. We're relatable. We're reliable." is vomit inducing. The multiple spelling mistakes and atrocious grammar don't help either. A whole paragraph on EDI but nothing about ethics and compliance with the law.
"The Inquiry team has been formed within Post Office to resolve certain legacy issues facing Post Office in connection with its dealings with Postmasters."
Legacy issues!
The biggest miscarriage of justice in English history. That is the Post Office's legacy.
The bastards still don't get it and while I am generally a gentle soul all in favour of the law and behaving well and so forth, the Sicilian side of me quite fancies applying the thumbscrews to these callous numbskulls. And then making them sleep on a bed of nettles and brambles, while smeared in jam. In the heat. Next to a wasp's nest.
Anyway I was out having my Sunday lunch and in true Leon style I offer this up -
And for all you PB brains where might this be?
Somewhere on the Equator by the orientation of the trees.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
Did either side surrender in Korea? No. They just agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line. And nothing else
Has Russia agreed to stop fighting on a particular frozen line? Has Russia ever kept to an agreement it has previously made with Ukraine?
The answer to both questions is emphatically, no. So Ukraine has to keep fighting. And in that case shouldn't we give it the best chance of success?
I’ve given you my answers. It’s fairly obvious that this requires Russian agreement
As Russia doesn’t look like it’s in the mood for peace talks then yes, Ukraine has to keep fighting for now - and we must support them
Not sure how well-informed this analysis is, but it has been flagged by Francis Fukuyama, as giving the reasons why Ukraine will prevail.
"The dire situation for Russians will move then from critical to hopeless when Ukrainians break through the lines and storm to the Azov Sea. In the early stages of this open war, Russians focused on securing the Azov coast in order to protect their bases in Crimea. With the Ukrainian arsenal such as HIMARS, Stormshadows/Scalp-EG and likely soon TAURUS, as well, Ukrainian control of whole Zaporizhzhia will make the Russian occupation in Crimea untenable. It will be similar to Germany 1944 where a fight might still continue another year (which it did), but it wouldn't change the outcome. The liberation of Zaporizhzhia by Ukrainians forces equals Russia's strategic defeat. Both sides know that. "
If the Ukrainians can get artillery permanently within range of the railway line that passes through Tokmak it’s over for the Russian occupation of anywhere west of there. That’s the only E<->W rail line inside Russian occupied Ukraine. Sure, they can use the roads further south, but that requires huge numbers of trucks & drivers that they don’t have.
This is why the Russians have built so many defensive lines in this area & also why the steady Ukrainian advance here is so impressive.
I think he'd be unwise to stand - he's not a natural administrator, and the Mayor position only offers limited scope for left-wing policies. But remember it's FPTP. The starting position on those figures is Khan 40 Corbyn 33, Hall 22 - I know it's not a VI poll (there will be a big overlap in the Khan and Corbyn "likes"), but that's probably a fair reflection of attitudes. His standing doesn't on those figures remotely lead to Hall winning, and he only needs a 4% swing to put him first.
His chance are however much better IMO in Islington North. Lots of people who are normally Labour voters and some who aren't (notably Greens, who are strong in the constituency) would be relaxed about having a sole independent leftie voice in Parliament, fulfilling much the same function as Caroline Lucas. I doubt if Starmer would really care too much.
I'm in Islington North, and part of me would love him to stand. If he does, I'll be pleased to be at the polling station at the scrake of dawn for my first ever vote for Labour, and as the first time in a constituency where my vote will ever have the chance of making a difference.
If ever it was the time for grown-up, sensible government then surely it is now? I don't care if Starmer is boring, he's much more likely to be competent than the current lot. And Corbyn, much as his independent spirit & contrarian voice may have been valued on the backbenches in the past, is no longer a member of the Labour party. Voting for him won't help get to a Labour majority government. Why risk it?
First kick Corbyn upstairs . . . then down the laundry shute . . .
NOT fatal like falling out of top-floor window in Moscow, but still ending up in a heap at the bottom.
This isn't good. Ukraine struggling - badly - on the Kharkiv front
Many of us have said it before, they are simply running out of men. Meanwhile the Russians seem better equipped, better trained, and even better motivated. NB this is a usually pro-Kyiv source
"It also lacks battlefield experience, from low ranks to commanding officers. Nor do they have many options to draw on somebody else's. The year 2022 ground down Ukraine's supply of experienced warfighters to the point where there can be said to be a shortage."
Ukraine, I fear, is slowly losing this war. Or at least: not winning
You are having a laugh saying Russians are better trained, they are mainly just out of prisons or back of beyond, stuck in a WWII tank or with an old pitchfork etc and sent to the front. They have lots of people but not so many real soldiers.
It's not me saying it, it is the Ukrainian soldiers in that report from a highly pro-Ukrainian source
It also makes sense. The Ukrainians are absolutely gallant and determined, no doubt, but it is a small country compared to Russia, and the Ukes have lost 200,000 or more to death and injury. They've already lost many (most?) of their properly trained troops, and they are now relying on conscripts who get 3 weeks training in NATO then in they go
What are you smoking? The actual reports from Ukraine are nothing like that.
The troops now being deployed to push the Robotyne win down towards Tokmak, are the elite units held back earlier in the year, and working with the new NATO tanks and rockets.
Can you not read?
I am referring to this report - I linked it, go see - on the Kharkiv front
Give them more and better weapons. It’s existential.
And damn good value for money, from a Western perspective.
It is very hard to see the deaths of 100,000s of men and women as “damn good value for money” - whatever your perspective on the war
I really question some of these western sentiments
Do you want the Ukrainians to surrender right away?
All Leon is doing is questioning whether the Ukrainians should settle at some point or move back quite a long way.
He's also intimating that the Ukes are definitely going to lose, so should cut their losses
And he's talking up the hundred billion views of the Carson Orban interview that's basically Putin approved propaganda
He'd been veering too close to the dark side for my liking since his return
This is where PB loses its mind. I am pointing out that Ukraine has significant problems on its eastern front - coz their resources are stretched - and I did that citing a pro-Ukraine source! The Kyiv Independent
Meanwhile I wondered if we are really seeing a breakthrough in the south. TBH the situation on the ground is hard to discern, and there are conflicting accounts, some of the more pessimistic appraisals come, again, from Ukrainians. The evidence I provided for this came from that well known Putnist apologiser-media, the BBC
And becuause of this I am "veering to the dark side" like I have signed up for The Wagner Group
Honestly, get a grip
Ukraine does have problems, but it is also making solid progress in the South. And, if the Crimean land bridge is severed, then Russia is in real trouble. How does it supply the troops in Crimea or the West of the country?
Personally, I think this is very simple:
It's not our job to tell Ukraine not to fight the aggressor. If the Ukrainian people want to keep standing up to Putin, then it is moral duty to give them as much help as we can. And if they wish to make peace, then we must support them in that too.
Too many people think that our support is somehow unethical because it might prolong the war. That is a morally repugnant view.
Given that none of us (that I can work out) have a particular background in matters ethical, I think we should probably try to avoid confident declarations of moral repugnance in the views of others.
And yet you would have been one of the first to decry the US's invasion in Iran.
What is it about Vladimir Putin that you find particularly attractive?
There are a lot of erroneous figures being quoted on here tonight. The OBR TaxSpend website is helpful if you want to know the correct numbers (and also see how they've changed over time):
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
It’s quite funny, Leon is a writer, a journalist, a player. He comes on with some controversial post about UFOs, crazy dogs, quasi-negativity to Ukraine and everyone spends a few posts telling him nobody cares and then two threads discussing the posts he makes.
Probably doesn’t really remotely care about the point he’s making but loves that everyone then dances to what he posts.
He’s a master of diverting any thread to his whim and everyone follows. He’s laughing. Trouts on a hook. I doff my cap to his puppetry.
Well you can all be diverted by my How-to-use-your-garden-to-torture-people post coupled with Guess The Tree. I've already got one volunteer cook out of it, and Leon has never had tha!
I'd do a barbecue for Leon, as long as he agreed to 2 conditions:
(1) He comes to Newent for it;
(2) While there, he agreed to say something nice about the town and publicise it in the Spectator.
"The happiness I found while visiting Newent, was only exceeded by the joy I felt on leaving it."
We also must make it possible for the government to borrow to fund capital investment, regardless of the current deficit situation.
Britain has the second-lowest debt:GDP ratio in the G7, and Japan demonstrates that a sovereign can issue much more debt if it really wants to. The trick is to do so for sound infrastructure reasons, not a tax giveaway a la Truss.
Britain CAN bridge the productivity gap with peers, but ONLYif it breaks away from 40 years of Treasury mindset which says that industrial policy and infrastructure is bad.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
The Ukrainians I know are perhaps less revanchist than you might expect. Territorial integrity is almost a secondary concern compared to the overriding desire to get out of Russia's shadow.
As @NickPalmer and others have pointed out in the past, Russia have been busily creating "facts on the ground" in Crimea and the Donbas since 2014. Ukrainians might reasonably term this "ethnic cleansing" - but, even if it weren't for the current war, reversing this might well be messy.
Russia has force Ukraine into a position where they have to choose a hegemon - and they've chosen to look west. They want to see a path towards EU membership, and either full NATO membership or some form of association with strong security guarantees. That's Number 1 on their list, everything else is below that.
So if some sort of deal can be worked out - say if Russia pays something towards compensation for the lost territory and an indemnity for the cost of the current war - then I suspect that many Ukrainians may be tempted to settle.
But they'd need to be very very sure about those security guarantees - no more military incursions, no more threats to Black Sea shipping, no more cutting off oil or gas pipelines, some form of international control for Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
It’s quite funny, Leon is a writer, a journalist, a player. He comes on with some controversial post about UFOs, crazy dogs, quasi-negativity to Ukraine and everyone spends a few posts telling him nobody cares and then two threads discussing the posts he makes.
Probably doesn’t really remotely care about the point he’s making but loves that everyone then dances to what he posts.
He’s a master of diverting any thread to his whim and everyone follows. He’s laughing. Trouts on a hook. I doff my cap to his puppetry.
Well you can all be diverted by my How-to-use-your-garden-to-torture-people post coupled with Guess The Tree. I've already got one volunteer cook out of it, and Leon has never had tha!
I'd do a barbecue for Leon, as long as he agreed to 2 conditions:
(1) He comes to Newent for it;
(2) While there, he agreed to say something nice about the town and publicise it in the Spectator.
"The happiness I found while visiting Newent, was only exceeded by the joy I felt on leaving it."
"The best thing to come out of Edinburgh was the train to Glasgow."
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
My own view is that if the Government is spending 45% of national income, that ought to be quite sufficient to fund public services. Attlee’s government spent a lower proportion.
I have no desire at all to pay more in tax than I presently do.
Some seem to think gdp should belong to the government and they just award us some pocket money. I cant see how almost 50% isnt enough
It depends if you believe that public sector productivity can only fall, not rise.
The more we pay the less we seem to get....been the same for 40 years
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I can point to examples here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. I would have saved money
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
Go ahead and try to sell it, doubt you can people are already squeezed and wont buy the touted bollocks of it coming of the top 1% because they know its a lie
We don’t have manifestos yet, but parties who are likely to increase tax (albeit not hugely) are on 62% in the polls.
And none of those manifesto's will have tax rises because we already give too much to the fucking state. It is time the state stopped doing a lot of shit
Labour had already said there will be at least one tax rise in its manifesto. I would expect LibDem and Green manifestos to be similar. I don’t think they’ll lay out big tax rises, but they’ll have some tax rises.
It seems to me that it’s not that the people won’t support any tax rises, it’s that you don’t support any tax rises. I respect your views. You are free to vote for a party that favours cutting what the state does. (Reform UK?) But I think we should all separate what we want from what we think the public will vote for.
And those tax rises if in their manifestos which I doubt will result in the public sector getting more money and still delivering less despite it.
The section on the Post office as "We're trusted. We're relatable. We're reliable." is vomit inducing. The multiple spelling mistakes and atrocious grammar don't help either. A whole paragraph on EDI but nothing about ethics and compliance with the law.
"The Inquiry team has been formed within Post Office to resolve certain legacy issues facing Post Office in connection with its dealings with Postmasters."
Legacy issues!
The biggest miscarriage of justice in English history. That is the Post Office's legacy.
The bastards still don't get it and while I am generally a gentle soul all in favour of the law and behaving well and so forth, the Sicilian side of me quite fancies applying the thumbscrews to these callous numbskulls. And then making them sleep on a bed of nettles and brambles, while smeared in jam. In the heat. Next to a wasp's nest.
Anyway I was out having my Sunday lunch and in true Leon style I offer this up -
And for all you PB brains where might this be?
Align and slightly trim, then post
Thanks.
Is this place rather more famous for topiary?
[Edit: I suppose you could call that part of the topiary - it is obviously trimmed Beech]
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
What are you going to stop then?
Also, re:"We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever". Total UK government expenditure in 2023/24 is projected to be 46.2%; it's been higher than that three times in the past 50 years.
The UK tax take is of course lower at 41.1% GDP and therein lies a fundamental issue that any economically sensible government would have taken steps to address before now.
French public spending typically runs at 55% - 60% of GDP and they don't seem to do too bad on it.
German public spending has rarely dipped below 45% GDP and is currently running at 50.7% GDP. Again, seems to work ok there.
What's this fad of putting a roast dinner in a big pile in the middle of a soup bowl?
Have they run out of plates?
I was served a 'deconstructed' full breakfast a while ago. Bits of sausage, eggs and beans sliding about on top of slab of slate. Previous owners had just shoved it all in a bap, as god intended.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
The Ukrainians I know are perhaps less revanchist than you might expect. Territorial integrity is almost a secondary concern compared to the overriding desire to get out of Russia's shadow.
As @NickPalmer and others have pointed out in the past, Russia have been busily creating "facts on the ground" in Crimea and the Donbas since 2014. Ukrainians might reasonably term this "ethnic cleansing" - but, even if it weren't for the current war, reversing this might well be messy.
Russia has force Ukraine into a position where they have to choose a hegemon - and they've chosen to look west. They want to see a path towards EU membership, and either full NATO membership or some form of association with strong security guarantees. That's Number 1 on their list, everything else is below that.
So if some sort of deal can be worked out - say if Russia pays something towards compensation for the lost territory and an indemnity for the cost of the current war - then I suspect that many Ukrainians may be tempted to settle.
But they'd need to be very very sure about those security guarantees - no more military incursions, no more threats to Black Sea shipping, no more cutting off oil or gas pipelines, some form of international control for Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
I think, with regard to your last paragraph, the plain truth is that there is no guarantee of security for Ukraine except to be militarily stronger than Russia. Every other guarantee has been broken and will be broken again.
That does also mean, for good or ill, they need to control Crimea (all of it, this time, including the ex-Soviet naval bases) so they have control of their coastline. The need to deny Ukraine that strategic asset was why Lenin took it off them in 1921 and may well have figured in Putin's calculations in 2014. That's even before we start talking about the oil and gas reserves in its waters.
The facts on the ground may not be as clearcut as you say. Russia has been kidnapping hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking Ukrainians, especially children, from the occupied regions. Will they return them? If not, they may have absentmindedly ethnically cleansed their own people.
Similarly, if Ukraine were to regain the Crimea I wonder how many Russian speakers currently there would leave it.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
We also must make it possible for the government to borrow to fund capital investment, regardless of the current deficit situation.
Britain has the second-lowest debt:GDP ratio in the G7, and Japan demonstrates that a sovereign can issue much more debt if it really wants to. The trick is to do so for sound infrastructure reasons, not a tax giveaway a la Truss.
Britain CAN bridge the productivity gap with peers, but ONLYif it breaks away from 40 years of Treasury mindset which says that industrial policy and infrastructure is bad.
I agree with you but surely the problem here is twofold - firstly that borrowing in the traditional sense results in massive debt repayments even if the markets aren't spooked a la Truss. And secondly that if the markets think we are losing control of the deficit and debt then the bond yields go through the roof.
It is not just a case of being willing to borrow the money. It is also a case of being able to afford to and finding someone to lend it to you.
I am in Harrogate. It looks very nice but it's on a slope. Everything is up or down then down or up. I shall wander around looking lost. Entertain yourselves in my absence 😀
The section on the Post office as "We're trusted. We're relatable. We're reliable." is vomit inducing. The multiple spelling mistakes and atrocious grammar don't help either. A whole paragraph on EDI but nothing about ethics and compliance with the law.
"The Inquiry team has been formed within Post Office to resolve certain legacy issues facing Post Office in connection with its dealings with Postmasters."
Legacy issues!
The biggest miscarriage of justice in English history. That is the Post Office's legacy.
The bastards still don't get it and while I am generally a gentle soul all in favour of the law and behaving well and so forth, the Sicilian side of me quite fancies applying the thumbscrews to these callous numbskulls. And then making them sleep on a bed of nettles and brambles, while smeared in jam. In the heat. Next to a wasp's nest.
Anyway I was out having my Sunday lunch and in true Leon style I offer this up -
It’s quite funny, Leon is a writer, a journalist, a player. He comes on with some controversial post about UFOs, crazy dogs, quasi-negativity to Ukraine and everyone spends a few posts telling him nobody cares and then two threads discussing the posts he makes.
Probably doesn’t really remotely care about the point he’s making but loves that everyone then dances to what he posts.
He’s a master of diverting any thread to his whim and everyone follows. He’s laughing. Trouts on a hook. I doff my cap to his puppetry.
Well you can all be diverted by my How-to-use-your-garden-to-torture-people post coupled with Guess The Tree. I've already got one volunteer cook out of it, and Leon has never had tha!
I'd do a barbecue for Leon, as long as he agreed to 2 conditions:
(1) He comes to Newent for it;
(2) While there, he agreed to say something nice about the town and publicise it in the Spectator.
"The happiness I found while visiting Newent, was only exceeded by the joy I felt on leaving it."
I feel like that about Camden. Absolute shithole frankly. Much like Islington.
And the people: quite ghastly .......overpaid poseurs most of them.
We also must make it possible for the government to borrow to fund capital investment, regardless of the current deficit situation.
Britain has the second-lowest debt:GDP ratio in the G7, and Japan demonstrates that a sovereign can issue much more debt if it really wants to. The trick is to do so for sound infrastructure reasons, not a tax giveaway a la Truss.
Britain CAN bridge the productivity gap with peers, but ONLYif it breaks away from 40 years of Treasury mindset which says that industrial policy and infrastructure is bad.
I agree with you but surely the problem here is twofold - firstly that borrowing in the traditional sense results in massive debt repayments even if the markets aren't spooked a la Truss. And secondly that if the markets think we are losing control of the deficit and debt then the bond yields go through the roof.
It is not just a case of being willing to borrow the money. It is also a case of being able to afford to and finding someone to lend it to you.
The Treasury continually cut capital budgets because it's politically the easiest thing to do. The projects haven't happened yet and the future risks are somebody's else's problem.
Dealing with current spending and public sector pensions liabilities are hugely difficult and would require very brave political leadership, and protracted battles.
I think that needs to happen but it's no surprise it hasn't yet given the quality of our leadership. For all his faults at least Hunt had a go at health.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
My own view is that if the Government is spending 45% of national income, that ought to be quite sufficient to fund public services. Attlee’s government spent a lower proportion.
I have no desire at all to pay more in tax than I presently do.
Some seem to think gdp should belong to the government and they just award us some pocket money. I cant see how almost 50% isnt enough
It depends if you believe that public sector productivity can only fall, not rise.
The more we pay the less we seem to get....been the same for 40 years
Maybe we need a demented South African immigrant with no impulse control and a thing for building hospitals?
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
My own view is that if the Government is spending 45% of national income, that ought to be quite sufficient to fund public services. Attlee’s government spent a lower proportion.
I have no desire at all to pay more in tax than I presently do.
Some seem to think gdp should belong to the government and they just award us some pocket money. I cant see how almost 50% isnt enough
It depends if you believe that public sector productivity can only fall, not rise.
The more we pay the less we seem to get....been the same for 40 years
Maybe we need a demented South African immigrant with no impulse control and a thing for building hospitals?
The section on the Post office as "We're trusted. We're relatable. We're reliable." is vomit inducing. The multiple spelling mistakes and atrocious grammar don't help either. A whole paragraph on EDI but nothing about ethics and compliance with the law.
"The Inquiry team has been formed within Post Office to resolve certain legacy issues facing Post Office in connection with its dealings with Postmasters."
Legacy issues!
The biggest miscarriage of justice in English history. That is the Post Office's legacy.
The bastards still don't get it and while I am generally a gentle soul all in favour of the law and behaving well and so forth, the Sicilian side of me quite fancies applying the thumbscrews to these callous numbskulls. And then making them sleep on a bed of nettles and brambles, while smeared in jam. In the heat. Next to a wasp's nest.
Anyway I was out having my Sunday lunch and in true Leon style I offer this up -
And for all you PB brains where might this be?
Align and slightly trim, then post
Thanks.
Is this place rather more famous for topiary?
[Edit: I suppose you could call that part of the topiary - it is obviously trimmed Beech]
Ooh - well done. It is indeed Levens Hall and in addition to all the other wonderful aspects to the place are these beech hedges which you can hide in - to play hide and seek with your children - or just to cool off in during the heat. The gardens are wonderful.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
Nobody is saying the State has to expand forever, just that taxes should rise to cover the current size of the State.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
Nobody is saying the State has to expand forever, just that taxes should rise to cover the current size of the State.
Why should the state not shrink to the size of the taxes. It is already 45% of gdp
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
Nobody is saying the State has to expand forever, just that taxes should rise to cover the current size of the State.
You mean the country should pay its way? Wash your mouth out!
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
Nobody is saying the State has to expand forever, just that taxes should rise to cover the current size of the State.
You mean the country should pay its way? Wash your mouth out!
No the state should shrink till the country pays its way
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
Lord Woolton, Mister for Food, was taken one morning in November, 1940 on an official tour of a MoF local office in south London. But when they got there (according to LW in his diary)
"In Battersea, the town hall, which included the food office and all the records, had just been made into a mass of twisted iron. . . . we motored through miles of streets in all of which windows were broken, doors blown off, and their were huge areas in which houses had been completely wrecked."
Woolton's response was galvanizing MoF to organize an "Underground Food Train" as well as mobile canteens and stoves at street level. Including, indeed actively recruiting, volunteer canteens and other voluntary support - from home and abroad.
For example, envisioned combined ambulance/canteens including "the food supplies, kitchens, and everything that would produce the hot drinks and food that shocked people needed" in the aftermath of an air raid."
Great idea - but how to fund it? HMG had other pressing priorities, though Woolton did know of one particular donor to cover a small part of what he wanted.
Then in December, 1940, he had a meeting with the head of the "British War Relief Society of America" which was part of the pro-Allied "Bundles for Britain" movement in the USA, a year before Pearl Harbor.
"I have an idea for which I need your help," said the British businessman-turned-minister to the American businessman-turned-philanthropist.
"Each unit would consist of a mobile water-tanker that can carry up to 350 gallons, there would be two lorries each containing 6,000 means, two kitchen lorries with soup boilers and fuel, three mobile canteens, and five motor-cyclists who will liaise between the area in need and the local authorities."
Seeing that he'd definitely captured the American's interest, Woolton continued.
"I'd should like you to consider helping to fund the fleet. . . . I should add that there is one individual who has already pledged to personally fund eight of these vehicles. And I should say that it might be indiscreet of me to mention who she might be."
Woolton paused . . . then gave a studied glance at the framed picture on his desk, of himself next to Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother).
The response was immediate, and enthusiastic. "Lord Woolton," said the American, "we will fund the whole lot."
The (mostly) women staffing this rapid-response for air-raid relief were dubbed by Woolton, "Queen's Messengers" because as he explained to the King, "these women . . . will indeed be messengers of mercy."
For as Woolton said to the Queen, "the vast majority of the people think of you as a person who would speak the kindly word, and, if it fell within your power, would take the cup of soup to the needy person."
Startled, the Queen replied, "do you really think that people think of me like that, because it is so much what I want them to think. It's what I try to be."
His namesake vegetable pie remains a simple and delicious recipe.
There seems to be increasing talk among Trump-adjacent people about the inevitability of going to war with the drug cartels. It could be a weak point for Biden in the general election.
War on the drug cartels plays well with his base, but surely most rational US voters see it as a completely bollocks idea. We tried a War on Drugs: drugs won and the voters noticed. Much of the country supports drug legalisation. Meanwhile, American isolationists aren’t going to be very excited by the idea of invading another country. Old-school Republicans are horrified at the nonsense of the idea.
Drug legalisation is absolutely impossible and insanely dangerous in the face of new drugs like fentanyl and tranq
Do try and keep up
Legalise, regulate, and tax the hell out of every drug. Works well for alcohol and tobacco, why not the others?
fentanyl Is the perfect example of the war on drugs driving the adoption of worse and worse substitute drugs.
I am in Harrogate. It looks very nice but it's on a slope. Everything is up or down then down or up. I shall wander around looking lost. Entertain yourselves in my absence 😀
If you get very lost, I like this place. No food though.
There seems to be increasing talk among Trump-adjacent people about the inevitability of going to war with the drug cartels. It could be a weak point for Biden in the general election.
War on the drug cartels plays well with his base, but surely most rational US voters see it as a completely bollocks idea. We tried a War on Drugs: drugs won and the voters noticed. Much of the country supports drug legalisation. Meanwhile, American isolationists aren’t going to be very excited by the idea of invading another country. Old-school Republicans are horrified at the nonsense of the idea.
Drug legalisation is absolutely impossible and insanely dangerous in the face of new drugs like fentanyl and tranq
Do try and keep up
Legalise, regulate, and tax the hell out of every drug. Works well for alcohol and tobacco, why not the others?
fentanyl Is the perfect example of the war on drugs driving the adoption of worse and worse substitute drugs.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
You miss the point Pagan. It's not that they couldn't organise the extension of NIC to pension income - either party could do that with ease - it's that they fear the Mail and Express whipping-up a voter backlash that would see them lose the GE. See TM's social care proposals for an example of how that works.
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
They are a pair of yellow belly appeasers, they would both gladly join the invaders to save their skanky skins if UK was taken over.
I do not think this. I do want to understand the rationale for Ukraine surrendering at this point and why this might be better for Ukraine than continuing the killing. Thing is, I'm not hearing the rationale from two commentators on this forum that presumably should be making that rationale, given they imply a surrender to Russia is best for Ukraine.
It was a genuine question.
At least you’re polite and apparently sane. So I’ll answer
I never mentioned surrender! Ever (I don’t think). Or if I did it was hyperbole or a figure of speech
I don’t believe either side can win this. Or only at such tremendous human cost you have to wonder if it is a victory at all. So no one needs to surrender
The basis of any negotiated peace will likely be the same next week as it will be in a year. Russia gets to keep Crimea and maybe the Donbas (subject to referendums?). Ukraine gets to join NATO (asap) and eventually the EU, so they know Putin can never threaten them again
The other items to be resolved as and when
Alternatively both sides will freeze positions on a tacitly agreed line without ever declaring peace. As in Korea
I can see one more positive possible outcome. It Ukraine can break through this year and cut the azov lines from Russia to Crimea. That would be a game changer. But these reports from pessimistic Ukrainian journalists tell me that is sadly unlikely. But we can pray
But if Ukraine isn't to surrender, it has to fight on. How do you square that?
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
My own view is that if the Government is spending 45% of national income, that ought to be quite sufficient to fund public services. Attlee’s government spent a lower proportion.
I have no desire at all to pay more in tax than I presently do.
Some seem to think gdp should belong to the government and they just award us some pocket money. I cant see how almost 50% isnt enough
It depends if you believe that public sector productivity can only fall, not rise.
The more we pay the less we seem to get....been the same for 40 years
Maybe we need a demented South African immigrant with no impulse control and a thing for building hospitals?
You musk be joking.
The alternative seems to be people rejected by the DfE for incompetence, giving out contracts with “infrastructure inflation” which, when plotted graphically, suggests that we will be unable to afford one new toilet by 2050.
Something has to give.
I know that building a school without a 37,000 page plan is immoral. But we may have to resort to extremes to fix things. Like only having a 36,000 page plan.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
The section on the Post office as "We're trusted. We're relatable. We're reliable." is vomit inducing. The multiple spelling mistakes and atrocious grammar don't help either. A whole paragraph on EDI but nothing about ethics and compliance with the law.
"The Inquiry team has been formed within Post Office to resolve certain legacy issues facing Post Office in connection with its dealings with Postmasters."
Legacy issues!
The biggest miscarriage of justice in English history. That is the Post Office's legacy.
The bastards still don't get it and while I am generally a gentle soul all in favour of the law and behaving well and so forth, the Sicilian side of me quite fancies applying the thumbscrews to these callous numbskulls. And then making them sleep on a bed of nettles and brambles, while smeared in jam. In the heat. Next to a wasp's nest.
Anyway I was out having my Sunday lunch and in true Leon style I offer this up -
And for all you PB brains where might this be?
Align and slightly trim, then post
Thanks.
Is this place rather more famous for topiary?
[Edit: I suppose you could call that part of the topiary - it is obviously trimmed Beech]
Ooh - well done. It is indeed Levens Hall and in addition to all the other wonderful aspects to the place are these beech hedges which you can hide in - to play hide and seek with your children - or just to cool off in during the heat. The gardens are wonderful.
I've only been a couple of times but it does make quite an impression. It was a perfect day for a visit today.
Our garden is the full rewild (plus cactus patch) but in a parallel universe I'd definitely be up for trimming shapes dawn to dusk. Something quite satisfying about that job.
Mind you, I did find a box moth on our front hedge the other day. They must live in terror of it.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
You miss the point Pagan. It's not that they couldn't organise the extension of NIC to pension income - either party could do that with ease - it's that they fear the Mail and Express whipping-up a voter backlash that would see them lose the GE. See TM's social care proposals for an example of how that works.
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
No you miss the point the tax take for the state is already too high which is the point 45% of gdp is too high. They waste it like money is going out of fashion
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
Nobody is saying the State has to expand forever, just that taxes should rise to cover the current size of the State.
No, the State should shrink to match a realistic tax take.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
You miss the point Pagan. It's not that they couldn't organise the extension of NIC to pension income - either party could do that with ease - it's that they fear the Mail and Express whipping-up a voter backlash that would see them lose the GE. See TM's social care proposals for an example of how that works.
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
No you miss the point the tax take for the state is already too high which is the point 45% of gdp is too high. They waste it like money is going out of fashion
There seems to be increasing talk among Trump-adjacent people about the inevitability of going to war with the drug cartels. It could be a weak point for Biden in the general election.
War on the drug cartels plays well with his base, but surely most rational US voters see it as a completely bollocks idea. We tried a War on Drugs: drugs won and the voters noticed. Much of the country supports drug legalisation. Meanwhile, American isolationists aren’t going to be very excited by the idea of invading another country. Old-school Republicans are horrified at the nonsense of the idea.
Drug legalisation is absolutely impossible and insanely dangerous in the face of new drugs like fentanyl and tranq
Do try and keep up
Legalise, regulate, and tax the hell out of every drug. Works well for alcohol and tobacco, why not the others?
fentanyl Is the perfect example of the war on drugs driving the adoption of worse and worse substitute drugs.
No it's not
It’s being used because it is incredibly compact per dose.
No war on drugs, why would anyone need it? Or touch anything possibly contaminated with it? If Big Pharma is selling medical grade coke etc, for prices the cartels can barely match, why buy from Danny The Drug Dealer.
At the end of Prohibition, the Mob ran, not walked away from the alcohol business. Because they realised they couldn’t compete on price or quality.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
I agree with you on this and have long advocated it. But this is a separate (although still valid) question to that of the overall size of the State. We need to change both where we get the tax from and the amount the State is taking. #
And actually neither one is directly dependent on the other. Both are valid positions that could be pursued either in combination or independently.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
The Ukrainians I know are perhaps less revanchist than you might expect. Territorial integrity is almost a secondary concern compared to the overriding desire to get out of Russia's shadow.
As @NickPalmer and others have pointed out in the past, Russia have been busily creating "facts on the ground" in Crimea and the Donbas since 2014. Ukrainians might reasonably term this "ethnic cleansing" - but, even if it weren't for the current war, reversing this might well be messy.
Russia has force Ukraine into a position where they have to choose a hegemon - and they've chosen to look west. They want to see a path towards EU membership, and either full NATO membership or some form of association with strong security guarantees. That's Number 1 on their list, everything else is below that.
So if some sort of deal can be worked out - say if Russia pays something towards compensation for the lost territory and an indemnity for the cost of the current war - then I suspect that many Ukrainians may be tempted to settle.
But they'd need to be very very sure about those security guarantees - no more military incursions, no more threats to Black Sea shipping, no more cutting off oil or gas pipelines, some form of international control for Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
I think, with regard to your last paragraph, the plain truth is that there is no guarantee of security for Ukraine except to be militarily stronger than Russia. Every other guarantee has been broken and will be broken again.
That does also mean, for good or ill, they need to control Crimea (all of it, this time, including the ex-Soviet naval bases) so they have control of their coastline. The need to deny Ukraine that strategic asset was why Lenin took it off them in 1921 and may well have figured in Putin's calculations in 2014. That's even before we start talking about the oil and gas reserves in its waters.
The facts on the ground may not be as clearcut as you say. Russia has been kidnapping hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking Ukrainians, especially children, from the occupied regions. Will they return them? If not, they may have absentmindedly ethnically cleansed their own people.
Similarly, if Ukraine were to regain the Crimea I wonder how many Russian speakers currently there would leave it.
I agree with that, and suspect that Crimea - or, at the very least, the land bridge towards it, including Melitopol and Berdiansk - would be the bare minimum that Ukraine would seek to regain in the absence of substantial indemnities.
Even before 2014, Russia had Sebastopol - but their presence there allows them to control shipping from Odessa. And that's no longer acceptable to Ukraine. No matter what, they're determined to be in control of their exports.
So any guarantees would absolutely have to involve regional powers: Poland and Turkey, perhaps. Maybe a rotating US / British / French warship stationed off the Ukrainian coast.
We're a long, long way from Russia accepting that - but why should Ukraine settle for anything less, given Russia's recent behaviour?
Any talk of "the Ukrainians might accept a stalemate" is fantasy in the absence of genuine security guarantees & a path to full integration with the west.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
You miss the point Pagan. It's not that they couldn't organise the extension of NIC to pension income - either party could do that with ease - it's that they fear the Mail and Express whipping-up a voter backlash that would see them lose the GE. See TM's social care proposals for an example of how that works.
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
No you miss the point the tax take for the state is already too high which is the point 45% of gdp is too high. They waste it like money is going out of fashion
Lord Woolton, Mister for Food, was taken one morning in November, 1940 on an official tour of a MoF local office in south London. But when they got there (according to LW in his diary)
"In Battersea, the town hall, which included the food office and all the records, had just been made into a mass of twisted iron. . . . we motored through miles of streets in all of which windows were broken, doors blown off, and their were huge areas in which houses had been completely wrecked."
Woolton's response was galvanizing MoF to organize an "Underground Food Train" as well as mobile canteens and stoves at street level. Including, indeed actively recruiting, volunteer canteens and other voluntary support - from home and abroad.
For example, envisioned combined ambulance/canteens including "the food supplies, kitchens, and everything that would produce the hot drinks and food that shocked people needed" in the aftermath of an air raid."
Great idea - but how to fund it? HMG had other pressing priorities, though Woolton did know of one particular donor to cover a small part of what he wanted.
Then in December, 1940, he had a meeting with the head of the "British War Relief Society of America" which was part of the pro-Allied "Bundles for Britain" movement in the USA, a year before Pearl Harbor.
"I have an idea for which I need your help," said the British businessman-turned-minister to the American businessman-turned-philanthropist.
"Each unit would consist of a mobile water-tanker that can carry up to 350 gallons, there would be two lorries each containing 6,000 means, two kitchen lorries with soup boilers and fuel, three mobile canteens, and five motor-cyclists who will liaise between the area in need and the local authorities."
Seeing that he'd definitely captured the American's interest, Woolton continued.
"I'd should like you to consider helping to fund the fleet. . . . I should add that there is one individual who has already pledged to personally fund eight of these vehicles. And I should say that it might be indiscreet of me to mention who she might be."
Woolton paused . . . then gave a studied glance at the framed picture on his desk, of himself next to Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother).
The response was immediate, and enthusiastic. "Lord Woolton," said the American, "we will fund the whole lot."
The (mostly) women staffing this rapid-response for air-raid relief were dubbed by Woolton, "Queen's Messengers" because as he explained to the King, "these women . . . will indeed be messengers of mercy."
For as Woolton said to the Queen, "the vast majority of the people think of you as a person who would speak the kindly word, and, if it fell within your power, would take the cup of soup to the needy person."
Startled, the Queen replied, "do you really think that people think of me like that, because it is so much what I want them to think. It's what I try to be."
His namesake vegetable pie remains a simple and delicious recipe.
Though I believe finding enough shortening for the crust of a pastry version was apt to be a problem. But the potato topping option was also available.
Ukraine has three basic choices, I think. It can (1) try to settle as best it can with Russia; (2) try to hold the current line of control - defensive position; (3) try to take back territory from Russia - attack position.
(1) Would be carte blanche for Russia to take more and more of Ukraine. It hasn't respected a single agreement it has make with Ukraine and it is anyway committed to taking more territory.
(2) Might result in Ukraine losing soldiers slower than (3) and also using equipment more slowly, but Ukraine still needs to keep fighting and see its men being killed at a slightly slower rate. The problem of (1) still applies. Russia won't be satisfied with the current LoC.
(3) Sees the highest casualty rates but it does potentially create facts on the ground, or at least avoid facts on the ground that are detrimental to Ukraine,and may eventually force Russia to a settlement.
My question to @Leon and @CorrectHorseBat is why would (1) or (2) be better than (3) for Ukraine, and why wouldn't we as outsiders support Ukraine if they choose (3) ?
The Ukrainians I know are perhaps less revanchist than you might expect. Territorial integrity is almost a secondary concern compared to the overriding desire to get out of Russia's shadow.
As @NickPalmer and others have pointed out in the past, Russia have been busily creating "facts on the ground" in Crimea and the Donbas since 2014. Ukrainians might reasonably term this "ethnic cleansing" - but, even if it weren't for the current war, reversing this might well be messy.
Russia has force Ukraine into a position where they have to choose a hegemon - and they've chosen to look west. They want to see a path towards EU membership, and either full NATO membership or some form of association with strong security guarantees. That's Number 1 on their list, everything else is below that.
So if some sort of deal can be worked out - say if Russia pays something towards compensation for the lost territory and an indemnity for the cost of the current war - then I suspect that many Ukrainians may be tempted to settle.
But they'd need to be very very sure about those security guarantees - no more military incursions, no more threats to Black Sea shipping, no more cutting off oil or gas pipelines, some form of international control for Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
The Ukrainians I know are perhaps less revanchist than you might expect. Territorial integrity is almost a secondary concern compared to the overriding desire to get out of Russia's shadow.
Yes. But that doesn't seem to apply to the Russians. As long as the Russians want more territory, Ukraine will have no security. Hence I think Ukraine's three basic choices are as I set out.
I can see an eventual deal where Ukraine trades Russian occupation of Crimea for getting out of disputed areas of the Donbas. The key would be to turn Crimea from a stronghold to a Ukrainian hostage. Ukraine trains its guns across the Crimean isthmus and down the Azov Sea to Kerch: you don't muck us up in Donbas and we won't do the same to you in Crimea.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
You miss the point Pagan. It's not that they couldn't organise the extension of NIC to pension income - either party could do that with ease - it's that they fear the Mail and Express whipping-up a voter backlash that would see them lose the GE. See TM's social care proposals for an example of how that works.
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
No you miss the point the tax take for the state is already too high which is the point 45% of gdp is too high. They waste it like money is going out of fashion
See richards figures from the house of commons library which disagree with your link. I suspect therefore you link is not taking into account some things like for example fuel duty
There seems to be increasing talk among Trump-adjacent people about the inevitability of going to war with the drug cartels. It could be a weak point for Biden in the general election.
War on the drug cartels plays well with his base, but surely most rational US voters see it as a completely bollocks idea. We tried a War on Drugs: drugs won and the voters noticed. Much of the country supports drug legalisation. Meanwhile, American isolationists aren’t going to be very excited by the idea of invading another country. Old-school Republicans are horrified at the nonsense of the idea.
Drug legalisation is absolutely impossible and insanely dangerous in the face of new drugs like fentanyl and tranq
Do try and keep up
Legalise, regulate, and tax the hell out of every drug. Works well for alcohol and tobacco, why not the others?
fentanyl Is the perfect example of the war on drugs driving the adoption of worse and worse substitute drugs.
No it's not
It’s being used because it is incredibly compact per dose.
No war on drugs, why would anyone need it? Or touch anything possibly contaminated with it? If Big Pharma is selling medical grade coke etc, for prices the cartels can barely match, why buy from Danny The Drug Dealer.
At the end of Prohibition, the Mob ran, not walked away from the alcohol business. Because they realised they couldn’t compete on price or quality.
But this is simply wrong
By all accounts (I've read a lot) Fentanyl gives a notably superior high, more euphoric, more numbing, than the best heroin. The fact it s horribly addictive, much more dangerous, doesn't worry the cartels; the fact it is cheaper and compact is obviously a big plus
For tranq you can take all this and multiply by ten. The withdrawal can easily kill you, so if you get people to try it just once or twice, you have the perfect customer. Utterly enslaved. Many will die but more will come
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
They are not my figures. That is why I provided the link.
They are from the HoC Library which itemises the exact tax take in the link I included.
And the GDP of £2,300 billion is from the OBR. Actually theirs was slightly less at £2,230 billion but I rounded it up as it was for 2022 rather than 2022/23. Using the OBR figure makes the numbers even worse.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
You miss the point Pagan. It's not that they couldn't organise the extension of NIC to pension income - either party could do that with ease - it's that they fear the Mail and Express whipping-up a voter backlash that would see them lose the GE. See TM's social care proposals for an example of how that works.
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
No you miss the point the tax take for the state is already too high which is the point 45% of gdp is too high. They waste it like money is going out of fashion
That's your opinion, to which you are entitled, but it's not fact.
Personally, I would rather the state organise certain services and organise them to a standard befitting a rich country, which we are. I also believe in a humane welfare safety net. That is my opinion.
I recognise we will not agree on those opinions but please respect that mine is as valid as yours.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
Excerpt from that pdf:
Box 1:
Tax receipts and public sector current receipts Most government revenues come from taxes or social contributions. National insurance contributions are the UK’s social contributions. In 2022/23, £916 billion was raised from taxes and social contributions, equivalent to 36% of GDP.
When ‘other receipts’ such as interest payments on government assets, and income generated by public corporations are added in we reach the wider measure of public sector current receipts. In 2022/23, £1,017 billion was raised from public sector receipts, equivalent to 40% of GDP.
Whether you think payments to government owned corporations & interest payments are part of the tax take is perhaps a matter of definition, but it’s important to be clear exactly what we mean.
If you want to match government expenditure to income, then you can cut expenditure or you can raise taxes: What are you going to cut? It’s not enough to say “the government should spend less”, that’s just magically thinking. Which services are you going to put on the chopping board?
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
They are not my figures. That is why I provided the link.
They are from the HoC Library which itemises the exact tax take in the link I included.
And the GDP of £2,300 billion is from the OBR. Actually theirs was slightly less at £2,230 billion but I rounded it up as it was for 2022 rather than 2022/23. Using the OBR figure makes the numbers even worse.
IIRC didn’t the OBR bump their GDP estimates up by 2% last week? It was all over the financial press.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Thanks. But your problem remains. the politics of difficult subjects is exactly in the detail. How much. From whom. Who gets. Who gives.
If 45% of GDP is not enough, it is entirely reasonable to ask roughly how much would be.
The IT point is not about landing all liabilities onto the IT payer, but a fairly exact guide as the political difficulties of raising an additional £100 bn - a sum which would only enable us to cease borrowing further at high interest rates. £3,300 per household or per IT payer is a lot of money. If it landed only on the wealthiest it would be a very large amount indeed.
It is not politics to say we must massively increase expenditure but pretend that it is too complicated to do simple sums to work out the burden to be shared. Essentially to do so is to keep company with Truss and Corbyn and other unserious players. It is very noticeable that Sir K intends to win an election if he can by not joining the ranks of the entirely unserious. I notice that a lot of people (including me) plan to vote for him.
The really low spending countries are mostly failed states, with a few interesting exceptions like Taiwan, Singapore and Costa Rica. Even middle income counties are typically in the thirties, with Switzerland being another anomaly in that range.
Pretty much all the countries that a reasonable person of no great wealth would want to live in are in the 40-50% range.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
If the question was can they organise a piss up in a brewery the answer would still be no. Our politicians are all incompetent as are our civil servants
You miss the point Pagan. It's not that they couldn't organise the extension of NIC to pension income - either party could do that with ease - it's that they fear the Mail and Express whipping-up a voter backlash that would see them lose the GE. See TM's social care proposals for an example of how that works.
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
No you miss the point the tax take for the state is already too high which is the point 45% of gdp is too high. They waste it like money is going out of fashion
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
They are not my figures. That is why I provided the link.
They are from the HoC Library which itemises the exact tax take in the link I included.
And the GDP of £2,300 billion is from the OBR. Actually theirs was slightly less at £2,230 billion but I rounded it up as it was for 2022 rather than 2022/23. Using the OBR figure makes the numbers even worse.
The OBR's data shows forecast public receipts at 41.1% GDP in 2023/24 forecast spend is 46.2% GDP.
The actuals for 2022/23 were 40.5% and 45.6% respectively. It's in the OBR databank link I provided https://obr.uk/data/
The section on the Post office as "We're trusted. We're relatable. We're reliable." is vomit inducing. The multiple spelling mistakes and atrocious grammar don't help either. A whole paragraph on EDI but nothing about ethics and compliance with the law.
"The Inquiry team has been formed within Post Office to resolve certain legacy issues facing Post Office in connection with its dealings with Postmasters."
Legacy issues!
I wasted a lot of time and money a few weeks ago when trying to attend the Post Office Inquiry. They cancelled the hearing after 10 minutes because the Post Office hadn't disclosed all the documents they should have. I was booked in for 2 days.
If we’re doing photos of sundowners then here’s mine. Chase Gin and tonic. Wolf and Dingo and “Ontario rat” knives for display
What kind of nutter has a President Putin mug?
A right-wing nutter.
I’m sorry but I also have a Ukraine flag flying from my balcony
Genuine Russian cultural artefact
I love their political kitsch
I bought the Putin mugs in St Petersburg in 2016. I've got one of him bare chested on the horse. Superb
The Matryoshka doll above was banned by Putin & Co. According to my step-mother the shop she bought such things in was raided by the police who took away all the ones featuring Putin as the smallest piece
Apparently, ones with Putin as the largest doll are ok with him.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
Excerpt from that pdf:
Box 1:
Tax receipts and public sector current receipts Most government revenues come from taxes or social contributions. National insurance contributions are the UK’s social contributions. In 2022/23, £916 billion was raised from taxes and social contributions, equivalent to 36% of GDP.
When ‘other receipts’ such as interest payments on government assets, and income generated by public corporations are added in we reach the wider measure of public sector current receipts. In 2022/23, £1,017 billion was raised from public sector receipts, equivalent to 40% of GDP.
Whether you think payments to government owned corporations & interest payments are part of the tax take is perhaps a matter of definition, but it’s important to be clear exactly what we mean.
If you want to match government expenditure to income, then you can cut expenditure or you can raise taxes: What are you going to cut? It’s not enough to say “the government should spend less”, that’s just magically thinking. Which services are you going to put on the chopping board?
For £1,017 billion to be equivalent to 40% of GDP, the UK GDP would have to be £2,542 billion in the year 2022/23.
Nowhere I can find is quoting it as anywhere near that large. And if it was that is a jump of of almost 19% from 2021. That really would be something to shout about.
Here is the comment from the journalist himself, at the end
"Hi, this is Francis Farrell, cheers for reading this article. It's been a while since I've done a field report from around Bakhmut, but this time was definitely different. For those of us who are dedicated to the victory of Ukraine, there is no point living with rose-tinted goggles on, this is what it will look like for a long time. As long as it goes on, we will be here, reporting on it as it is"
I've been making similar comments for quite some time now. The truth is that the Russians have proven much, much harder to beat than looked to be the case last Autumn. At a time when we expected them to be suffering ever more severe logistical challenges and perhaps even a collapse of morale they have been more organised, better led and more effective than they had been up to now. Someone in the Russian army is actually getting a grip. We can only hope that he falls out of favour soon.
Defending is easier than attacking. Much more so. Last year Ukraine was mostly defending and inflicted horrendous casualties on the Russians. Now it is their turn. Moving about on a modern battlefield is seriously dangerous. Drones, artillery, minefields, booby traps, it is getting almost too dangerous for humans not in armour to survive.
It remains entirely possible that Russia will have a breaking point and collapse. I really hope so. I desperately want Ukraine to win this war. It just doesn't look imminent.
At last! An adult in the room
You are entirely right
An adult is not someone who agrees with you. And with all respect to davidl who is normally a sensible poster russia cannot be allowed to have any sort of win here. If the do we will be doing this all over again in a few years
I wasn’t suggesting for a moment that Russia be allowed a win. I am merely expressing reservations about the awful cost Ukraine is paying to try and make them suffer a loss.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
Tax on income should not go up. Ideally it should be cut.
Where there is room for tax rises is equalising unearned and earned incomes.
There is no justification for National Insurance, or some income being exempt from it.
Merge NI and Income Tax. Ensure all income of the same amount always pays the same rate of tax.
To do so would be politically "brave", but is long overdue. Osborne had an opportunity to do it, but flunked it.
Sir Keir Starmer has an opportunity to do it too, if he wins the next election.
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
Spot on.
An obvious move would be to unify income tax & employee NI. Now the retired have a 32% income tax rate for income over £10k.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
I agree with you on this and have long advocated it. But this is a separate (although still valid) question to that of the overall size of the State. We need to change both where we get the tax from and the amount the State is taking. #
And actually neither one is directly dependent on the other. Both are valid positions that could be pursued either in combination or independently.
But how big is too big?
It's the Laffer Curve argument in a different guise; almost everyone can agree that 0 percent and 100 percent are bad, but very little is known about the line that joins those two points. And whilst "tax income from different rates" is at least two objective quantities, "goodness of society from different sizes of state" is going to be pretty subjective.
If we’re doing photos of sundowners then here’s mine. Chase Gin and tonic. Wolf and Dingo and “Ontario rat” knives for display
What kind of nutter has a President Putin mug?
A right-wing nutter.
I’m sorry but I also have a Ukraine flag flying from my balcony
Genuine Russian cultural artefact
I love their political kitsch
I bought the Putin mugs in St Petersburg in 2016. I've got one of him bare chested on the horse. Superb
The Matryoshka doll above was banned by Putin & Co. According to my step-mother the shop she bought such things in was raided by the police who took away all the ones featuring Putin as the smallest piece
Apparently, ones with Putin as the largest doll are ok with him.
I think this pic of Putin is better
To be fair to Vlad he WAS quite buff. And he was about 50, then?
I doubt very much he would take his shirt off today, age 70
So, we could be spending well north of £400bn per annum in less than 12 years time on just pensions and the NHS combined.
That's horrific.
Even worse, we'd be spending all that money. Whilst having terrible front line healthcare and terrible pensions compared to so many of our European neighbours
How much for "good" pensions and healthcare then? 500bn? 700bn? 1tn?
Where does it end?
I suspect whatever we throw at rNHS it will never be enough and people will say it’s starved of funds.
This is what annoys me people call for all parts of the state to be fully funded....yes I agree with that what the state does should be fully funded. I asked bondegezu earlieer how much do you think the cost of fully funding everything the state does will be....answer came there none. I assume therefore he realises the tax take necessary to fully fund what the state does would be unacceptable to most voters...so the question still is cut the state functions or increase tax to fully fund them
If you see everything as costs, then your instinct is to cut. If you see everything as investments, maybe you’d have a different approach. The Tories have cut and ended up costing us more. So I think we can get improvements without increasing the tax take.
But I’m all for increasing the tax take as well! There are countries with higher tax takes. They also have a higher quality of life. I think one can sell that vision to voters.
I fully accept that the state can be run better; but you can't alter the rules of maths by labelling state expenditure as investment any more than a household can.
But 'increasing the tax take' needs detail, and detail is politically tough.
Total managed expenditure in 22/23 was 45.6% of GDP. At the same time we borrowed over £100bn. At the same time every bit of the state budget is under huge pressure to expand.
So, as a % of GDP, how much would be enough, and who shall pay how much of it?
As a rough intro and a starter for 10, the £100 bn borrowing is £3,300 per income tax payer (or per household, the numbers are similar) per year.
Sure, it needs detail. I am not standing for election. I don’t have any economists working for me, nor friendly think tanks. So, sorry, I’m not going to give you detail.
I don’t know that households = income tax payers. Income tax is 27% of the UK tax take, so it’s an important part of the picture, but misleading to imply that the solution lies purely in income tax increases., although I’m fine with higher rate tax payers, like myself, paying more.
I can point to examples of steps in the right direction here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing. I support merging NIC and income tax.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. The ridiculous pantomime around asylum seekers where the government avoids processing people at ever greater cost is a nonsense and readily solved.
I would have saved money by not doing the PHE->UKHSA reorganisation, nor the NHSE/NHSX/HEE merger, but we are where we are. I work in digital health. I’d do more central commissioning of digital health. At present, it’s difficult for innovation to develop or spread because local commissioning is inefficient and often inexpert.
Of course income tax isn't the only part of employment taxes. There is another almost 19% being taken in Employer and employee national insurance plus other minor taxes such as the Apprenticeship levy which are also charged against wages.
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
I think the reality is that a future government is going to have to increase income taxes on the retired. Currently they only pay income tax - no NI, no employers NI. The working age population has been squeezed already & they have the largest expenses - housing, childcare & increasingly student loan repayments. It's hard to see how they can be made to pay much more. The wealthier retired are sitting on large incomes, housing that they own outright & are paying a pittance in tax by comparison whilst getting the lions share of the output of the NHS. If they want quality healthcare in their old age, the older generation are going to have to start paying for it.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
But the overall tax take is already too high.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
They are not my figures. That is why I provided the link.
They are from the HoC Library which itemises the exact tax take in the link I included.
And the GDP of £2,300 billion is from the OBR. Actually theirs was slightly less at £2,230 billion but I rounded it up as it was for 2022 rather than 2022/23. Using the OBR figure makes the numbers even worse.
The OBR's data shows forecast public receipts at 41.1% GDP in 2023/24 forecast spend is 46.2% GDP.
The actuals for 2022/23 were 40.5% and 45.6% respectively. It's in the OBR databank link I provided https://obr.uk/data/
And the majority of people get little in return from this tax take unless they are heavily dependent on the nhs or schools which is not most of us. For the taxes I pay I get bin collections, police that wont investigate if I get burgeled, gp's I cant see if I am ill because by the appointment is due (2 to 3 weeks I am either better or have died). Frankly I am paying to fund other people and I am paying too much to the point I am finding it hard to make ends meet. Yet people like you want to take even more off me
Comments
(1) He comes to Newent for it;
(2) While there, he agreed to say something nice about the town and publicise it in the Spectator.
The answer to both questions is emphatically, no. So Ukraine has to keep fighting. And in that case shouldn't we give it the best chance of success?
Have they run out of plates?
As Russia doesn’t look like it’s in the mood for peace talks then yes, Ukraine has to keep fighting for now - and we must support them
I can point to examples here and there. Bart has laid out some solid plans around taxing unearned income more so as to match tax on earned income. He’s also laid out solid plans around housing.
Foxy, and others, has pointed out how the NHS has to pay heavily for agency staff, without addressing why it needs agency staff. I would have saved money Labour had already said there will be at least one tax rise in its manifesto. I would expect LibDem and Green manifestos to be similar. I don’t think they’ll lay out big tax rises, but they’ll have some tax rises.
It seems to me that it’s not that the people won’t support any tax rises, it’s that you don’t support any tax rises. I respect your views. You are free to vote for a party that favours cutting what the state does. (Reform UK?) But I think we should all separate what we want from what we think the public will vote for.
The basis for negotiations if Ukraine win the war is that Ukraine regains Crimea and the Donbas, Russia recognises Ukraine's independence, integrity and sovereignty, and the question to negotiate is what kind of reparations that Russia owes Ukraine to compensate for this failed invasion. And maybe how and when Russia will hand over Putin etc to the International Criminal Court.
Of Zelensky looks at what happened and says “Why shouldn’t we?”
They gave me a knife and fork to eat with, anyway.
https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1698310401983721794
Extract:
"The dire situation for Russians will move then from critical to hopeless when Ukrainians break through the lines and storm to the Azov Sea. In the early stages of this open war, Russians focused on securing the Azov coast in order to protect their bases in Crimea. With the Ukrainian arsenal such as HIMARS, Stormshadows/Scalp-EG and likely soon TAURUS, as well, Ukrainian control of whole Zaporizhzhia will make the Russian occupation in Crimea untenable. It will be similar to Germany 1944 where a fight might still continue another year (which it did), but it wouldn't change the outcome. The liberation of Zaporizhzhia by Ukrainians forces equals Russia's strategic defeat. Both sides know that. "
(And the squeeze is as much about the price of housing as anything else.)
Lord Woolton, Mister for Food, was taken one morning in November, 1940 on an official tour of a MoF local office in south London. But when they got there (according to LW in his diary)
"In Battersea, the town hall, which included the food office and all the records, had just been made into a mass of twisted iron. . . . we motored through miles of streets in all of which windows were broken, doors blown off, and their were huge areas in which houses had been completely wrecked."
Woolton's response was galvanizing MoF to organize an "Underground Food Train" as well as mobile canteens and stoves at street level. Including, indeed actively recruiting, volunteer canteens and other voluntary support - from home and abroad.
For example, envisioned combined ambulance/canteens including "the food supplies, kitchens, and everything that would produce the hot drinks and food that shocked people needed" in the aftermath of an air raid."
Great idea - but how to fund it? HMG had other pressing priorities, though Woolton did know of one particular donor to cover a small part of what he wanted.
Then in December, 1940, he had a meeting with the head of the "British War Relief Society of America" which was part of the pro-Allied "Bundles for Britain" movement in the USA, a year before Pearl Harbor.
"I have an idea for which I need your help," said the British businessman-turned-minister to the American businessman-turned-philanthropist.
"Each unit would consist of a mobile water-tanker that can carry up to 350 gallons, there would be two lorries each containing 6,000 means, two kitchen lorries with soup boilers and fuel, three mobile canteens, and five motor-cyclists who will liaise between the area in need and the local authorities."
Seeing that he'd definitely captured the American's interest, Woolton continued.
"I'd should like you to consider helping to fund the fleet. . . . I should add that there is one individual who has already pledged to personally fund eight of these vehicles. And I should say that it might be indiscreet of me to mention who she might be."
Woolton paused . . . then gave a studied glance at the framed picture on his desk, of himself next to Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother).
The response was immediate, and enthusiastic. "Lord Woolton," said the American, "we will fund the whole lot."
The (mostly) women staffing this rapid-response for air-raid relief were dubbed by Woolton, "Queen's Messengers" because as he explained to the King, "these women . . . will indeed be messengers of mercy."
For as Woolton said to the Queen, "the vast majority of the people think of you as a person who would speak the kindly word, and, if it fell within your power, would take the cup of soup to the needy person."
Startled, the Queen replied, "do you really think that people think of me like that, because it is so much what I want them to think. It's what I try to be."
While we're on the subject, my pet hate is waiting staff interrupting the table conversation to ask 'is everything ok with your meal?' - usually in a tone of total disinterest.
This is why the Russians have built so many defensive lines in this area & also why the steady Ukrainian advance here is so impressive.
NOT fatal like falling out of top-floor window in Moscow, but still ending up in a heap at the bottom.
I did decry that invasion - and this invasion.
https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/
You are looking at somewhere over 45% of payroll being taken by the State in tax.
Now I have lots of sympathy for those on here and elsewhere who say we should rebalance tax away from employment and onto wealth. But my fear, in fact my expectation, is that any wealth taxes that are introduced will be in addition to not instead of employment taxes. That seem to be exactly what you are implying.
We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever and that the taxpayer - whether a wage earner, a company or a shopper can continue to keep paying for it.
Britain has the second-lowest debt:GDP ratio in the G7, and Japan demonstrates that a sovereign can issue much more debt if it really wants to. The trick is to do so for sound infrastructure reasons, not a tax giveaway a la Truss.
Britain CAN bridge the productivity gap with peers, but ONLYif it breaks away from 40 years of Treasury mindset which says that industrial policy and infrastructure is bad.
As @NickPalmer and others have pointed out in the past, Russia have been busily creating "facts on the ground" in Crimea and the Donbas since 2014. Ukrainians might reasonably term this "ethnic cleansing" - but, even if it weren't for the current war, reversing this might well be messy.
Russia has force Ukraine into a position where they have to choose a hegemon - and they've chosen to look west. They want to see a path towards EU membership, and either full NATO membership or some form of association with strong security guarantees. That's Number 1 on their list, everything else is below that.
So if some sort of deal can be worked out - say if Russia pays something towards compensation for the lost territory and an indemnity for the cost of the current war - then I suspect that many Ukrainians may be tempted to settle.
But they'd need to be very very sure about those security guarantees - no more military incursions, no more threats to Black Sea shipping, no more cutting off oil or gas pipelines, some form of international control for Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
[Edit: I suppose you could call that part of the topiary - it is obviously trimmed Beech]
Also, re:"We have to stop thinking the State can continue to expand forever". Total UK government expenditure in 2023/24 is projected to be 46.2%; it's been higher than that three times in the past 50 years.
The UK tax take is of course lower at 41.1% GDP and therein lies a fundamental issue that any economically sensible government would have taken steps to address before now.
French public spending typically runs at 55% - 60% of GDP and they don't seem to do too bad on it.
German public spending has rarely dipped below 45% GDP and is currently running at 50.7% GDP. Again, seems to work ok there.
Yes, this will be incredibly controversial. The alternative is steady decline in public services that destroys the ability of the economy to generate the wealth that allows that generation to enjoy their comfortable retirements. They’re going to pay out one way or the other - services that can’t be paid for won’t happen. Better for everyone to have a working population that generates decent GDP growth to fund their retirements.
That does also mean, for good or ill, they need to control Crimea (all of it, this time, including the ex-Soviet naval bases) so they have control of their coastline. The need to deny Ukraine that strategic asset was why Lenin took it off them in 1921 and may well have figured in Putin's calculations in 2014. That's even before we start talking about the oil and gas reserves in its waters.
The facts on the ground may not be as clearcut as you say. Russia has been kidnapping hundreds of thousands of Russian speaking Ukrainians, especially children, from the occupied regions. Will they return them? If not, they may have absentmindedly ethnically cleansed their own people.
Similarly, if Ukraine were to regain the Crimea I wonder how many Russian speakers currently there would leave it.
It is not just a case of being willing to borrow the money. It is also a case of being able to afford to and finding someone to lend it to you.
And the people: quite ghastly .......overpaid poseurs most of them.
Dealing with current spending and public sector pensions liabilities are hugely difficult and would require very brave political leadership, and protracted battles.
I think that needs to happen but it's no surprise it hasn't yet given the quality of our leadership. For all his faults at least Hunt had a go at health.
Will take a brave government though. Is Starmer’s Labour up to the task?
*panics*
https://whatpub.com/pubs/HAR/7504/gardeners-arms-harrogate
To that extent it's the electorate that's dumb not the politicians.
Something has to give.
I know that building a school without a 37,000 page plan is immoral. But we may have to resort to extremes to fix things. Like only having a 36,000 page plan.
According to the HOC library the total public sector receipts for 2022/23 is £1,017 billion.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/
For a GDP of somewhere around £2,300 billion. That is 44% of GDP being taken in taxes.
On top of that we borrowed another £130 billion.
So the Government is spending just shy of 50% of GDP.
As I say, I agree we should rebalance the tax take away from earnings and onto wealth - or at reduce it on earned income and increase it on unearned. And I say that as someone who will eb retiring in a decade or so, so looks to get hit twice. But at the same time we ned to reduce how much money the State is spending. It is unsustainable.
Our garden is the full rewild (plus cactus patch) but in a parallel universe I'd definitely be up for trimming shapes dawn to dusk. Something quite satisfying about that job.
Mind you, I did find a box moth on our front hedge the other day. They must live in terror of it.
Source https://obr.uk/data/
No war on drugs, why would anyone need it? Or touch anything possibly contaminated with it? If Big Pharma is selling medical grade coke etc, for prices the cartels can barely match, why buy from Danny The Drug Dealer.
At the end of Prohibition, the Mob ran, not walked away from the alcohol business. Because they realised they couldn’t compete on price or quality.
And as for the It is unsustainable comment, they sustain in in France, they sustain it in Germany, etc.
And actually neither one is directly dependent on the other. Both are valid positions that could be pursued either in combination or independently.
Even before 2014, Russia had Sebastopol - but their presence there allows them to control shipping from Odessa. And that's no longer acceptable to Ukraine. No matter what, they're determined to be in control of their exports.
So any guarantees would absolutely have to involve regional powers: Poland and Turkey, perhaps. Maybe a rotating US / British / French warship stationed off the Ukrainian coast.
We're a long, long way from Russia accepting that - but why should Ukraine settle for anything less, given Russia's recent behaviour?
Any talk of "the Ukrainians might accept a stalemate" is fantasy in the absence of genuine security guarantees & a path to full integration with the west.
Though I believe finding enough shortening for the crust of a pastry version was apt to be a problem. But the potato topping option was also available.
Yes. But that doesn't seem to apply to the Russians. As long as the Russians want more territory, Ukraine will have no security. Hence I think Ukraine's three basic choices are as I set out.
I can see an eventual deal where Ukraine trades Russian occupation of Crimea for getting out of disputed areas of the Donbas. The key would be to turn Crimea from a stronghold to a Ukrainian hostage. Ukraine trains its guns across the Crimean isthmus and down the Azov Sea to Kerch: you don't muck us up in Donbas and we won't do the same to you in Crimea.
By all accounts (I've read a lot) Fentanyl gives a notably superior high, more euphoric, more numbing, than the best heroin. The fact it s horribly addictive, much more dangerous, doesn't worry the cartels; the fact it is cheaper and compact is obviously a big plus
For tranq you can take all this and multiply by ten. The withdrawal can easily kill you, so if you get people to try it just once or twice, you have the perfect customer. Utterly enslaved. Many will die but more will come
They are from the HoC Library which itemises the exact tax take in the link I included.
And the GDP of £2,300 billion is from the OBR. Actually theirs was slightly less at £2,230 billion but I rounded it up as it was for 2022 rather than 2022/23. Using the OBR figure makes the numbers even worse.
Personally, I would rather the state organise certain services and organise them to a standard befitting a rich country, which we are. I also believe in a humane welfare safety net. That is my opinion.
I recognise we will not agree on those opinions but please respect that mine is as valid as yours.
If you want to match government expenditure to income, then you can cut expenditure or you can raise taxes: What are you going to cut? It’s not enough to say “the government should spend less”, that’s just magically thinking. Which services are you going to put on the chopping board?
I bought the Putin mugs in St Petersburg in 2016. I've got one of him bare chested on the horse. Superb
If 45% of GDP is not enough, it is entirely reasonable to ask roughly how much would be.
The IT point is not about landing all liabilities onto the IT payer, but a fairly exact guide as the political difficulties of raising an additional £100 bn - a sum which would only enable us to cease borrowing further at high interest rates. £3,300 per household or per IT payer is a lot of money. If it landed only on the wealthiest it would be a very large amount indeed.
It is not politics to say we must massively increase expenditure but pretend that it is too complicated to do simple sums to work out the burden to be shared. Essentially to do so is to keep company with Truss and Corbyn and other unserious players. It is very noticeable that Sir K intends to win an election if he can by not joining the ranks of the entirely unserious. I notice that a lot of people (including me) plan to vote for him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP
The really low spending countries are mostly failed states, with a few interesting exceptions like Taiwan, Singapore and Costa Rica. Even middle income counties are typically in the thirties, with Switzerland being another anomaly in that range.
Pretty much all the countries that a reasonable person of no great wealth would want to live in are in the 40-50% range.
(Edit: Hah. Foxy & I jinxed.)
The actuals for 2022/23 were 40.5% and 45.6% respectively. It's in the OBR databank link I provided https://obr.uk/data/
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/inquiry-to-consider-yet-more-delays/
Apparently, ones with Putin as the largest doll are ok with him.
I think this pic of Putin is better
Nowhere I can find is quoting it as anywhere near that large. And if it was that is a jump of of almost 19% from 2021. That really would be something to shout about.
Where there is room for tax rises is equalising unearned and earned incomes.
There is no justification for National Insurance, or some income being exempt from it.
Merge NI and Income Tax. Ensure all income of the same amount always pays the same rate of tax.
To do so would be politically "brave", but is long overdue. Osborne had an opportunity to do it, but flunked it.
Sir Keir Starmer has an opportunity to do it too, if he wins the next election.
It's the Laffer Curve argument in a different guise; almost everyone can agree that 0 percent and 100 percent are bad, but very little is known about the line that joins those two points. And whilst "tax income from different rates" is at least two objective quantities, "goodness of society from different sizes of state" is going to be pretty subjective.
I doubt very much he would take his shirt off today, age 70
During WWII, the Russians used to send punishment battalions at gun point into German mine fields to clear the way.
So chain the Post Office Managers and the lawyers together and March them into the Russian minefields. Nothing of value will be lost.