Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
Very telling, thank you. And another reason why it's significant that Mr Hunt did hee haw about fiscal drag.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
Don't hold back, Malcolm, say what you really think.....
Of course Trump might try and tap his MAGA grassroots for extra cash if donors fall short of the funds he needs. The SNP have Souter
That was cover in the article - his MAGA base isn't willing to send money the way it did in 2020
In 2019, his campaign collected $72 million in donations of $200 or less. But since launching his third White House bid in November 2022 and the end of last year, small donors have given just $27 million, according to data from the non-profit OpenSecrets.
Now it is perfectly possible that more people will contribute as the election gets closer but remember these figures compare 2019 with November 2022 to December 2023 so 14 months not 12 and it's just over 1/3 of the amount..
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
Try and hang on to a few bricks of that Blue Wall.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
Earn £50-70,000 and while the child benefit changes will help you it will probably just offset your increased mortgage costs..
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
How exactly did they do pensioners over? As far as I can see, they did nothing that altered the situation for them at-all? Or do you feel entitled to a tax cut and are miffed that the cut they chose doesn't apply to you?
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Better off pensioners should be paying more tax.
Be grateful no-one will come for arrears on the extra they should have been paying for years.
Are you deranged, pensioners pay the same taxes as everyone else and majority of them would love to be paying tax as it would mean they had more money
Well which one is it ?
If you are not eligible for a tax then any cut is ZERO as you pay ZERO. If you are paying a particular tax then you get the same cut as anyone else based on your payments. There are no breaks for pensioners on taxes , they have to pay all eligible taxes.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Better off pensioners should be paying more tax.
Be grateful no-one will come for arrears on the extra they should have been paying for years.
Are you deranged, pensioners pay the same taxes as everyone else and majority of them would love to be paying tax as it would mean they had more money
Pensioners don't pay the same taxes. Ni being the case in point.
You halfwit most people don't pay CGT, or various other taxes as they are NOT eligible for them. What do you nutters on here not understand about fact that people on stste pension are no longer eligible for NI. Do people on benefits pay NI , do children pay NI, FFS how stupid can people be.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
Earn £50-70,000 and while the child benefit changes will help you it will probably just offset your increased mortgage costs..
And this is why the budget has so spectacularly failed. Taxes have gone up and they have tried to claim they have cut taxes. Even their own supporters aren’t that stupid.
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
Earn £50-70,000 and while the child benefit changes will help you it will probably just offset your increased mortgage costs..
It's roughly £1000 a year per child, isn't it?
So that's a lot of children to offset increases in mortgage payments.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not just pensioners. I'm assuming you refer to the inaction of raising tax bands in line with inflation but let me know if that isn't the case. That affects everyone including the lowest paid.
Of course, another reason for unhappy pensioners, which we have rather forgotten of late, is that quite a few pensioners will be finding themselves needing to do tax returns at all for the first time in many years, because of fiscal drift, the reduction of the £1K interest rate allowance to £500, and the increase in interest rates.
With huge pressure to do it online.
And fines of £1000 if they don't, irrespective of the actual sum involved.
Sure, HMRC could do it automatically - except that DWP doesn't do PAYE on state pensions. And HMRC always get it wrong, more or less, now they don't deduct at source on bank interest.
In the old days I had to help the odd elderly relative or neighbour fill out the forms to recover overpaid tax on interest, or get the bank not to deduct interest at source, but that was at least safer in terms of potential penalties. Which, as discussed here resently, were never more than the actual sum owed. Until the recent and utterly malicious change.
Why can't pensioners do tax returns? It's not as if they are too busy working!
Sure, but many people don't know how - they've relied on PAYE and the allowance system while working.
And the new system is unfamiliar, above all the online one. A lot of old folk won't cope. Some will, some won't. For instgance, I've had great trouble dealing with one relative panicked by an £2 underpayment and the ensuing threatening letters from HMRC when the payment didn't go through at the bank (took three payments for one to work, because HMRC had downgraded the bank payment system to try and bully people into using computers). Totally non computer literate, not even a mobile.
Pensioners can vote, and were the reason we have the current government and rules. It is a useful education of what they have inflicted on the rest of us.
I have limited sympathy.
I have limited sympathy for whingers , especially those who are too lazy to vote or want to blame everything on pensioners rather than looking in the mirror.
We're you complaining about the stinginess of the state pension a few decades ago, when your taxes were going to pay the pensions of the generation above you?
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
Earn £50-70,000 and while the child benefit changes will help you it will probably just offset your increased mortgage costs..
It's roughly £1000 a year per child, isn't it?
So that's a lot of children to offset increases in mortgage payments.
[Johnson and Rees-Mogg have entered the chat.]
An improvement on what they normally enter in this context.
I've been a slight fan of Pope Francis during his time int he job, but after his Ukraine 'white flag' comment, I'd just like to say this:
Pope Francis, I hope you rot in Hell.
It doesn't matter how much he tries to clarify the comment; his words will have been heard and listened to. It is not up to Ukraine to 'negotiate'; it is up to Russia to withdraw.
There's also a rather important moral issue. Despite what tankies and pro-Russians say, Ukraine did not start this war. The aggressor is obvious, and the aggression unsupportable. What Pope Francis says will lead to more war, not less.
(And yes, I have read the 'clarification' (1), It's shit.
If I understand correctly, in order to protect the key principles of our liberal democracy Gove and Sunak are seeking to undermine two key principles of that liberal democracy, namely the right to free speech and the right to protest for any person or group that they, pretty arbitrarily, deem to be 'extremist'. Have I got that right?
Of course Trump might try and tap his MAGA grassroots for extra cash if donors fall short of the funds he needs. The SNP have Souter
That was cover in the article - his MAGA base isn't willing to send money the way it did in 2020
In 2019, his campaign collected $72 million in donations of $200 or less. But since launching his third White House bid in November 2022 and the end of last year, small donors have given just $27 million, according to data from the non-profit OpenSecrets.
Now it is perfectly possible that more people will contribute as the election gets closer but remember these figures compare 2019 with November 2022 to December 2023 so 14 months not 12 and it's just over 1/3 of the amount..
At this point in the election cycle in 2020, Trump had 740,000 individual donors.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
Earn £50-70,000 and while the child benefit changes will help you it will probably just offset your increased mortgage costs..
It's roughly £1000 a year per child, isn't it?
So that's a lot of children to offset increases in mortgage payments.
[Johnson and Rees-Mogg have entered the chat.]
2 lots of child benefit say £2000 2 lots of national insurance cuts so say £2400 (both adults)
but then you have fiscal drag on your income so that 5% wage increase is just offset by the NI cut if you are luck 5-10% on council tax so that's £100-400 extra in tax going out And your mortgage repayment probably doubled...
To be fair, I don't know why anybody is surprised. She's a Trump supporter, and Trump's very first press statement as president included the phrase 'alternative facts' to explain his lies about the number who attended his inauguration.
If I understand correctly, in order to protect the key principles of our liberal democracy Gove and Sunak are seeking to undermine two key principles of that liberal democracy, namely the right to free speech and the right to protest for any person or group that they, pretty arbitrarily, deem to be 'extremist'. Have I got that right?
The definition includes something like "undermine democracy"
I wonder how "illegally prorogue Parliament" fits under that?
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
This comment summarises the issue very well. What I would say though is that it is the student loan which is the absolute killer. The marginal tax rate jumps to nearly 60% once you go past £50k.
If I understand correctly, in order to protect the key principles of our liberal democracy Gove and Sunak are seeking to undermine two key principles of that liberal democracy, namely the right to free speech and the right to protest for any person or group that they, pretty arbitrarily, deem to be 'extremist'. Have I got that right?
The definition includes something like "undermine democracy"
I wonder how "illegally prorogue Parliament" fits under that?
And voting changes which mean one person can vote as he thinks fit on behalf of n emigrants
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Better off pensioners should be paying more tax.
Be grateful no-one will come for arrears on the extra they should have been paying for years.
So what is a “Better off pensioner”? State Pension in the U.K. is the lowest in Europe.
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
How desperate are these bunch of incompetent muppets - there is zero chance the electoral commission would decide on the wording of the question in the time required...
@MailOnline Tory MPs in new plot to oust Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister - and they want Boris to save the Conservatives from a catastrophic defeat
That's analogous to Conservative MPs in early 1997 demanding Margaret Thatcher comes back to lead the party.
The entire election woulld be about Boris Johnson and everything he did in office (not much of the good stuff either). His day is done, the Conservatives know they are done too.
The fork is ready, the butter and marmalade prepared...
If I understand correctly, in order to protect the key principles of our liberal democracy Gove and Sunak are seeking to undermine two key principles of that liberal democracy, namely the right to free speech and the right to protest for any person or group that they, pretty arbitrarily, deem to be 'extremist'. Have I got that right?
Mr Speaker, we must be willing to give up not just a part, but if necessary the whole of our constitutional system in order to preserve it.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Better off pensioners should be paying more tax.
Be grateful no-one will come for arrears on the extra they should have been paying for years.
Are you deranged, pensioners pay the same taxes as everyone else and majority of them would love to be paying tax as it would mean they had more money
Pensioners don't pay the same taxes. Ni being the case in point.
You halfwit most people don't pay CGT, or various other taxes as they are NOT eligible for them. What do you nutters on here not understand about fact that people on stste pension are no longer eligible for NI. Do people on benefits pay NI , do children pay NI, FFS how stupid can people be.
Not quite correct. People of State pension age or more don't pay NI. So if you carry on working, perhaps deferring the Lloyd George for another couple of years or so, then you still dont pay NI.
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
Referendums, we have learnt, rarely hinge on the question asked and tend to become about something else. Often they’re a referendum on the government’s performance. A referendum on quitting the ECHR headed by Johnson would be a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule and on Johnson’s behaviour (Partygate, lying to Parliament, etc.). It would be an absolute bloodbath. Bring it on.
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
I'm going to disagree with you on this.
I have also done my time in the public sector and my retirement is close. Those who are working on into their 60s do so for three reasons:
1) They like their job, they derive value and worth from it and fear without that they would slip into an early mental and physical decline. 2) The children are still going through University - remember we are all having children later now. It's not uncommon for parents in their late 50s to have children at secondary school or going through Uni (which isn't the easy financial ride it was in my day - full student grant - subsidised bar - 25p per pint - golden days !!) 3) Late divorces - prticularly for women, splitting up in your 50s and going through a divorce causes financial damage and often means mortgages outstanding so they have to keep working.
This notion everyone in the public sector is retiring in their early 50s and living a life of leisure is another one of the Daily Mail's grotesque propaganda pieces and needs to be challenged and nailed down (ideally with some nails).
Why do some Conservatives think fighting an election on immigration or specifically “illegal” immigration would be good for them? Don’t pick an area on which your performance has been terrible! The more the Tories bang on about immigration, the sooner Reform UK overtake them.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
I’m sure the public will be overjoyed to have him back , being a pathological liar , who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days will be a huge hit on the doorsteps !
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not actively handing pensioners sweeties for once is not the same as screwing them over.
Squareroot's reaction mirrors that of lots of retirees. Almost immediately recognising the cut in NICs as a direct attack on them.
The reasoning varies boomer to boomer, but the meme is born. It's difficult to think of a voting cohort that Sunak hasn't managed to alienate.
To be fair, they are not wrong to identify the budget as (for once) favouring earners over pensioners.
You might support the NI cut (I think it makes economic sense), but squareroot is perfectly entitled to complain about it.
It's an advanced form of self-absorption - "Working people get tax cut, this is bad for me."
Sadly, Labour must do everything possible to keep pensioners on side if they are to win the election. This cohort are extraordinarily sensitive to things like social care reform, pensions, capital gains tax.
I'm not saying I agree with him, but he's not wrong to note that fiscal drag means an effective tax increase for him which is not mitigated by the NI cut.
The bigger reality is that the country is in a financial hard place, and policy making is necessarily going to be less than ideal for many of us, whoever is in government. For quite some time.
Purely electorally, the distribution is pretty well calibrated.
The bottom 40% don't earn enough for the NI cut to counteract the threshold freeze, the next 50% do and the more they earn the better. Then there's the child benefit thing- fiscally the right thing to do, but the people affected are pretty well off in the grand scheme of things.
Right now, "better off workers" is where the frontline is, the best chance of Conservatives improving their position.
The crossover for where the cut in NI counteracts the threshold freeze is barely over Full Time Minimum Wage.
If part timers aren't benefiting then they can always decide to work more hours.
And of course one of the most pernicious ways our tax system treats people is the exorbitantly high marginal tax rate if you're poor, that means many people think they're no better off working any more than 16 hours. This tax change doesn't fix this but it is a (small) step in the right direction meaning that if people work more hours, they'll keep more of the extra money they earn.
Getting part timers to work full time instead, because work pays, is one of the easiest wins we could go for in fixing the tax system and would be the Laffer Curve in action. The state would pay out less in benefits, get more in taxes, and get all the multiplier consequentials of all that extra work elsewhere too. Cutting marginal taxes on the poorest in society is both morally and economically the right thing to do and this Budget in a small manner made this a bit better. Regardless of which party did it, it was the right thing to do.
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
Referendums, we have learnt, rarely hinge on the question asked and tend to become about something else. Often they’re a referendum on the government’s performance. A referendum on quitting the ECHR headed by Johnson would be a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule and on Johnson’s behaviour (Partygate, lying to Parliament, etc.). It would be an absolute bloodbath. Bring it on.
Conservatives are suffering from a generation of MPs who can't do politics.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
Agreed, I only got about 90% of my maintenance grant, but my fees were still all paid. And I think this was true even if you had a full parental contribution to the maintenance grant.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
So you still got a grant though?
Rather than no grant and tens of thousands of pounds of "debt" leading to an effectively permanent 9% tax rise for many people?
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
Referendums, we have learnt, rarely hinge on the question asked and tend to become about something else. Often they’re a referendum on the government’s performance. A referendum on quitting the ECHR headed by Johnson would be a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule and on Johnson’s behaviour (Partygate, lying to Parliament, etc.). It would be an absolute bloodbath. Bring it on.
Conservatives are suffering from a generation of MPs who can't do politics.
If they can't do politics then politics will do for them
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
I'm going to disagree with you on this.
I have also done my time in the public sector and my retirement is close. Those who are working on into their 60s do so for three reasons:
1) They like their job, they derive value and worth from it and fear without that they would slip into an early mental and physical decline. 2) The children are still going through University - remember we are all having children later now. It's not uncommon for parents in their late 50s to have children at secondary school or going through Uni (which isn't the easy financial ride it was in my day - full student grant - subsidised bar - 25p per pint - golden days !!) 3) Late divorces - prticularly for women, splitting up in your 50s and going through a divorce causes financial damage and often means mortgages outstanding so they have to keep working.
This notion everyone in the public sector is retiring in their early 50s and living a life of leisure is another one of the Daily Mail's grotesque propaganda pieces and needs to be challenged and nailed down (ideally with some nails).
Yeah ok but it is just what I have seen and is not intended to be a generalised account. But my point is that it is a large number of people in this category (many I guess who post on here) and who benefit from the current system. It is also true that many pensioners, almost certainly the majority, are not in this category; but the main point I am making in my comments on this issue is to be cautious about making generalisations about pensioners as a whole.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
Looking back at the numbers, yes, pretty sure I got the full grant. My father worked, not my mother who was caring for her mother and my brother was still at school.
I know by my final year I had dropped down the order and needed help from the Bank of Dad but I graduated with a debt of £50 which, compared to what today's students end up with, was nothing.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
Referendums, we have learnt, rarely hinge on the question asked and tend to become about something else. Often they’re a referendum on the government’s performance. A referendum on quitting the ECHR headed by Johnson would be a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule and on Johnson’s behaviour (Partygate, lying to Parliament, etc.). It would be an absolute bloodbath. Bring it on.
IIRC the ECHR was at least in part an idea put forward by Boris’ hero, Winston Churchill. I am not sure that even Boris would wish to trample so obviously on part of his hero’s legacy.
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
Indeed Darkage, however it is still a fact that the majority of pensioners are not rich and have big DB pensions. Only public sector have them nowadays and i private sector ethe average pot is not enough to feed a cat. There are as many poor pensioners as workers if not more. The obsession on here that pensioners all live a rosy life on 50K+ pensions, mortgage free mansions etc is mainly a deluded view of their own rich parents and no idea of real life.
O/T In contrast to Leon's depiction of the USA as something out of Zombie Apocalypse, a friend is currently doing an art appreciation tour of Texas. She is raving about the wonderful museums and art galleries (many founded by oil rich billionaires) The pictures she has posted on her social network look wonderful.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
So you still got a grant though?
Rather than no grant and tens of thousands of pounds of "debt" leading to an effectively permanent 9% tax rise for many people?
Not wishing to disagree with you on the unfairness of now and then but just to clarify the 'still got a grant though' in my day the grant was £500 which you could live on with holiday jobs and living at home in vacations, but the means tested element was £450 of that £500 so what you got ranged from £50 to £500. So you might only get 10% of the grant.
Of course there was also not the £9000+ student fees per year which really is the killer.
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
Indeed Darkage, however it is still a fact that the majority of pensioners are not rich and have big DB pensions. Only public sector have them nowadays and i private sector ethe average pot is not enough to feed a cat. There are as many poor pensioners as workers if not more. The obsession on here that pensioners all live a rosy life on 50K+ pensions, mortgage free mansions etc is mainly a deluded view of their own rich parents and no idea of real life.
I don't think anyone is suggesting all pensioners are well off.
I think what many are suggesting, I know I am, is that those pensioners who are well off should pay the same tax rate as anyone who is working for a living.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
So you still got a grant though?
Rather than no grant and tens of thousands of pounds of "debt" leading to an effectively permanent 9% tax rise for many people?
Not wishing to disagree with you on the unfairness of now and then but just to clarify the 'still got a grant though' in my day the grant was £500 which you could live on with holiday jobs and living at home in vacations, but the means tested element was £450 of that £500 so what you got ranged from £50 to £500. So you might only get 10% of the grant.
Of course there was also not the £9000+ student fees per year which really is the killer.
Trump may be facing money problems, but he doesn't need money to fund his campaign as much as other candidates, as the court cases are giving him unlimited free airtime, and prove that, for his base at any rate, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
The court cases are *not* free. In fact, one reason $30 million is less than it looks is because he’s been planning to drain the RNC coffers to pay his legal bills. At north $112,000 dollars a day including charges and interest that will vanish pretty quickly.
The publicity from those court cases is free in the same way that state schools are free to taxpayers - Trump doesn't pay for the airtime directly, but pays indirectly and unavoidably instead. Given that a presidential campaign can cost more than a billion I'm not sure it's such a bad deal either.
Except....all that "free publicity" is just reminding the non-MAGA base that he is a rapist and a fraudster. To MAGA mentalists, he is the Messiah. But to independents? Not so much.
But what will sink Trump is banging on about how disastrous the American economy is doing, when it is now powering ahead like nowhere else. The American voters will have cottoned on by November - and see how Trump is shit-talking their country.
I know its recovery from the water was controversial, and its rebuild even more so, but I cannot think of a better way of commemorating and furthering the memory of Donald Campbell.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Better off pensioners should be paying more tax.
Be grateful no-one will come for arrears on the extra they should have been paying for years.
Are you deranged, pensioners pay the same taxes as everyone else and majority of them would love to be paying tax as it would mean they had more money
Pensioners don't pay the same taxes. Ni being the case in point.
You halfwit most people don't pay CGT, or various other taxes as they are NOT eligible for them. What do you nutters on here not understand about fact that people on stste pension are no longer eligible for NI. Do people on benefits pay NI , do children pay NI, FFS how stupid can people be.
Not quite correct. People of State pension age or more don't pay NI. So if you carry on working, perhaps deferring the Lloyd George for another couple of years or so, then you still dont pay NI.
That is because you are NOT eligible to pay it, NI does not apply after you are on state pension, regardless. You don't pay IHT till your dead, what bit of that is hard to understand and why not whinge about that as well.
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
Referendums, we have learnt, rarely hinge on the question asked and tend to become about something else. Often they’re a referendum on the government’s performance. A referendum on quitting the ECHR headed by Johnson would be a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule and on Johnson’s behaviour (Partygate, lying to Parliament, etc.). It would be an absolute bloodbath. Bring it on.
Conservatives are suffering from a generation of MPs who can't do politics.
Is that a round about way of calling for the return of the consummate campaigner and national treasure Alexander Johnson? Would your man in uber-safe Totnes stand aside?
I know its recovery from the water was controversial, and its rebuild even more so, but I cannot think of a better way of commemorating and furthering the memory of Donald Campbell.
I remember hearing the news on the Home Service. I was nearly 5. I had been to the Science museum in Birmingham and seen the John Cobb/Railton land speed record car and was a bit of a fan of Donald and Malcolm Campbell.
No, the Conservatives mean it. They genuinely think they can remove people from the political process because they are bad people. They genuinely think that the political process should not deal with bad subjects or bad people. They think that they are not bad and so can judge what is bad and prevent it.
They don't know how to run a free country. They just don't.
@MarqueeMark if the Tories are going to campaign like this they’re going to lose handsomely. I would not be surprised to see the largest split in a campaign in history on the way they are currently going.
Starting to find it remarkable they even won in 2019 at this point.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Better off pensioners should be paying more tax.
Be grateful no-one will come for arrears on the extra they should have been paying for years.
So what is a “Better off pensioner”? State Pension in the U.K. is the lowest in Europe.
That has to be the most moronic post I have seen on PB and that takes some doing , the original one from ianB2. Kind of thing Trump would say , that bad.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Better off pensioners should be paying more tax.
Be grateful no-one will come for arrears on the extra they should have been paying for years.
Are you deranged, pensioners pay the same taxes as everyone else and majority of them would love to be paying tax as it would mean they had more money
Pensioners don't pay the same taxes. Ni being the case in point.
You halfwit most people don't pay CGT, or various other taxes as they are NOT eligible for them. What do you nutters on here not understand about fact that people on stste pension are no longer eligible for NI. Do people on benefits pay NI , do children pay NI, FFS how stupid can people be.
Not quite correct. People of State pension age or more don't pay NI. So if you carry on working, perhaps deferring the Lloyd George for another couple of years or so, then you still dont pay NI.
That is because you are NOT eligible to pay it, NI does not apply after you are on state pension, regardless. You don't pay IHT till your dead, what bit of that is hard to understand and why not whinge about that as well.
NI is just a form of income tax though, as recognised by HMRC in international tax treaties, so the fact you're not eligible to pay for it is a political choice not a law of nature.
Merge NI into Income Tax, align the bands appropriately, and that gets fixed and everyone can pay the same rate of tax. What's wrong with that?
Why should someone on a defined benefit public sector pension not be paying NI while someone working for a living does?
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
Referendums, we have learnt, rarely hinge on the question asked and tend to become about something else. Often they’re a referendum on the government’s performance. A referendum on quitting the ECHR headed by Johnson would be a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule and on Johnson’s behaviour (Partygate, lying to Parliament, etc.). It would be an absolute bloodbath. Bring it on.
Might squeeze Reform vote though. It isn't happening however, Rishi still has more Tory MPs behind him than Boris so would survive a VONC and Boris hasn't even got a parliamentary seat
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
Indeed Darkage, however it is still a fact that the majority of pensioners are not rich and have big DB pensions. Only public sector have them nowadays and i private sector ethe average pot is not enough to feed a cat. There are as many poor pensioners as workers if not more. The obsession on here that pensioners all live a rosy life on 50K+ pensions, mortgage free mansions etc is mainly a deluded view of their own rich parents and no idea of real life.
I don't think anyone is suggesting all pensioners are well off.
I think what many are suggesting, I know I am, is that those pensioners who are well off should pay the same tax rate as anyone who is working for a living.
Is that like everyone should get the same benefits as you , ie child benefits , free childcare , child credits and on and on you thicko. You are a greedy clown who wants all the benefits and wants other people not to get them but pay extra for you, pathetic.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
Abolish the graduate tax and you have to have up front tuition fees instead with some scholarships. National insurance should be ringfenced for the state pension, JSA and some healthcare not abolished
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
@MarqueeMark if the Tories are going to campaign like this they’re going to lose handsomely. I would not be surprised to see the largest split in a campaign in history on the way they are currently going.
Starting to find it remarkable they even won in 2019 at this point.
The box of frogs has just voted to expel its Tory members on the grounds they're damaging its reputation.
And in even more news, Armenia is considering joining the European Union.
Which should probably be '... considering applying to join...'
It is a rather spectacular move away from its previous position, where it depended on Russia for protection. But now Russia has abandoned the CSTO, it seems they are looking towards the civilised west.
(There would be a massive amount of problems with Armenia joining the EU - more so than even Turkey. But even the process of joining can help a country modernise and improve.)
Pro-Russian channels are rather furious about this. Oh dear, how sad, etc...
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
Indeed Darkage, however it is still a fact that the majority of pensioners are not rich and have big DB pensions. Only public sector have them nowadays and i private sector ethe average pot is not enough to feed a cat. There are as many poor pensioners as workers if not more. The obsession on here that pensioners all live a rosy life on 50K+ pensions, mortgage free mansions etc is mainly a deluded view of their own rich parents and no idea of real life.
I don't think anyone is suggesting all pensioners are well off.
I think what many are suggesting, I know I am, is that those pensioners who are well off should pay the same tax rate as anyone who is working for a living.
Is that like everyone should get the same benefits as you , ie child benefits , free childcare , child credits and on and on you thicko. You are a greedy clown who wants all the benefits and wants other people not to get them but pay extra for you, pathetic.
Of course if they have children they should and do get all children-related benefits, yes.
Many pensioners can and do have children and there's no upper age limit from the parents perspective of claiming so what a stupid thing to ask.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
I don't claim benefits so I'm fine with that.
You're counting the pension as a benefit aren't you, sunshine?
This is not a man who is going to turn around a 27-point polling deficit and win a general election.
Rishi Sunak has the unfortunate problem of sounding sarcastic whenever he speaks. I am not sure anyone has picked this up yet but it is not an appealing quality.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
My wife and I are both pensioners, we have two incomes both from contributory pensions and we are not yet old enough to have a state pension (thanks to the qualifying date for this being raised.)
We both pay a marginal rate of 20% on our incomes. Income tax, nothing else. We were paid to go to university, so no student loans ever. We have no housing costs, having long ago paid off our mortgage (having been fortunate to start out on the housing ladder when properties were cheap, we never had a mortgage of more than £50k.) We have no family to raise. So our incomes are more than enough to live on, indeed our savings our going up and we spend freely.
Now compare that to my son and his wife, in their early thirties, whose gross income is about the same as ours. They both pay 20% income tax, 10% NI currently, 9% student loan repayments (probably lasting 30 years) and pension contributions of 5% and 6% respectively. So they face a marginal rate of 44%-45% deductions from their income. Whats left goes on a £200k mortgage for a very modest house and raising one child so far. They struggle to make ends meet and have to watch every penny. Luckily for them they have Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, but others are not so lucky.
If this Chancellor and any future Chancellor want to level the playing field between my privileged retired generation and a generation of young adults in work who are struggling to make ends meet, through cutting NI and raising income tax by stealth, then I am all for it. The principle for me is that two people on the same income should pay the same rate of tax on it, regardless of the source of that income.
The truly scary thing is that if your son and daughter in law had one single income between them of the same amount as they currently earn jointly the situation would be even worse.
The truly scary thing is how stupid he is and the bollox he is spouting. Apart from NI which he will have paid for 50 years to get his miserly pension and his son and wife only need pay for 35 years , all other taxes are the same. They must be on good salaries if having to pay their student loans. Sounds like the usual whining of the well off , chances are if same as in his day they would not have got into university and be toiling in a factory ot Tesco and staying in a housing association rented house. My heart bleeds for them when I think of all those who could not go to uni, are in crap jobs working all hours while living in a dump with no pension and no hope of ever owning a modest 200K house. There is sure an incredible amount of rich whining bollox on here by green cheesed arseholes.
You start paying a student loan off if you income is above £28,600...
So both over 30K and therefore over 60K joint income. Hardly on the breadline or in bottom 50% of the population at generous minimum. Double the median UK income.
You can't add 2 incomes together and claim its double the median income.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
All your benefits should be abolished so you pay the same as me sunshine, no whining about them from spongers like you.
You don't have much in common with your political hero, former Socialist firebrand and maverick Alex Salmond do you Malcolm?
@MailOnline Tory MPs in new plot to oust Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister - and they want Boris to save the Conservatives from a catastrophic defeat
Closed doors meeting of the 1922 in Caracas.
Seriously, what's Johnson doing in Venezuela? Obviously be didn't go there to shoot the breeze about democracy and things Ukraine with Maduro. Someone, not Johnson, will have paid for the trip. What are they hoping to get for their money? What's in it for Johnson? His first thought when getting out of bed in the morning is always, what's in it for me?
I've been a slight fan of Pope Francis during his time int he job, but after his Ukraine 'white flag' comment, I'd just like to say this:
Pope Francis, I hope you rot in Hell.
It doesn't matter how much he tries to clarify the comment; his words will have been heard and listened to. It is not up to Ukraine to 'negotiate'; it is up to Russia to withdraw.
There's also a rather important moral issue. Despite what tankies and pro-Russians say, Ukraine did not start this war. The aggressor is obvious, and the aggression unsupportable. What Pope Francis says will lead to more war, not less.
(And yes, I have read the 'clarification' (1), It's shit.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales.
Difficult to break this down by immigration status, but using white-only v other households*, I find that the average white household has 1.1 spare bedrooms, while non-white has 0.6. If we lived all lived like non-white households, there would be additional 10 million bedrooms available in E&W.
London is by far the most efficient user of bedrooms, as you would expect. Wales, bits of Yorkshire, Cheshire, Rutland have loads of spare space in the existing housing stock. Using my own dodgy indicator, Leicester, Enfield, Harrow and Redbridge are deeply unequal LAs, with relatively high overcrowding for the number of rooms available.
(* Yes, I know this is a terrible metric and non-white people aren't all recent immigrants.)
Will the Sun back Labour? I certainly think the Times will.
I haven't been able to take the Sun seriously since I heard a comment from George Best years ago. " Mr Best I'm from the Sun could you tell about (latest scandal)". Besty responded "and I'm from Planet Earth, now **** off!"
Interesting clip from the London protest yesterday.
Amidst the crowd of demonstrators a man has the temerity to hold up a sign saying Hamas are terrorists. Soon enough a courageous figure in the crowd decides to tear the poster down and a small scuffle emerges. Thankfully the police are soon on hand to remove the troublemaker and make sure he is quickly on his way to the police station for a breach of the peace.
I'd like to challenge the idea that everyone going to University in the 60s and 70s got full student grant. The grants were means tested so if your parents were affluent you just got the minium grant and your parents had to support you.
So you still got a grant though?
Rather than no grant and tens of thousands of pounds of "debt" leading to an effectively permanent 9% tax rise for many people?
Azerbaijan will try to connect its exclave to the rest of its territory sooner or later, and this means (probably) taking the southern border with Iran. Iran will be on Armenia's side, but the Azeris have agreements with Turkey and Israel. No idea if that'd involve them actually joining the war, but Russia, formerly Armenia's backer as you mentioned, won't be doing a damned thing.
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
Referendums, we have learnt, rarely hinge on the question asked and tend to become about something else. Often they’re a referendum on the government’s performance. A referendum on quitting the ECHR headed by Johnson would be a referendum on 14 years of Conservative rule and on Johnson’s behaviour (Partygate, lying to Parliament, etc.). It would be an absolute bloodbath. Bring it on.
Might squeeze Reform vote though. It isn't happening however, Rishi still has more Tory MPs behind him than Boris so would survive a VONC and Boris hasn't even got a parliamentary seat
I think the idea is that Boris would lead the referendum campaign, and he doesn’t have to be an MP to do that.
As for Reform UK, I think banging on about how the government has failed (because there’s no point in leaving the ECHR if the Govt hasn’t failed) will do more to swell the Reform vote than to squeeze it.
Off thread but I have to say it...The Tories have got one more shot to get my vote back. They've screwed pensioners in this budget. If they don't do something in the Next statement I will do something I never thought I could do and Vote Labour.
Not just pensioners. I'm assuming you refer to the inaction of raising tax bands in line with inflation but let me know if that isn't the case. That affects everyone including the lowest paid.
Of course, another reason for unhappy pensioners, which we have rather forgotten of late, is that quite a few pensioners will be finding themselves needing to do tax returns at all for the first time in many years, because of fiscal drift, the reduction of the £1K interest rate allowance to £500, and the increase in interest rates.
With huge pressure to do it online.
And fines of £1000 if they don't, irrespective of the actual sum involved.
Sure, HMRC could do it automatically - except that DWP doesn't do PAYE on state pensions. And HMRC always get it wrong, more or less, now they don't deduct at source on bank interest.
In the old days I had to help the odd elderly relative or neighbour fill out the forms to recover overpaid tax on interest, or get the bank not to deduct interest at source, but that was at least safer in terms of potential penalties. Which, as discussed here resently, were never more than the actual sum owed. Until the recent and utterly malicious change.
Ahem. More likely to be a £1k fine + six month's worth of late payment charges, since they'll wait until July or August before actually sending you a letter about it...
Mind you, for people whose only income is PAYE the requirement is going the other way... the threshold for needing to do a tax return is being raised from £100k to £150k.
Did this story get discussed yesterday? I predict there will be no meaningful punishment. But it is nonetheless impressive the way that labour have taken the issue up. The right are starting to make gains in the 'war on woke'; the people that carry out these acts are helping the opposition, but the radical mindset is such that they will keep going.
It's criminal damage. So there could be a prosecution. It may possibly also amount to burglary. Just because you have general permission to enter a property does not give you permission to enter to steal or damage. The college could also take civil action for the value of the painting and the repair costs (assuming it can be repaired).
And if the person who did it and the one filming it are students of the college, presumably the college can also take disciplinary action.
If the perpetrators are students at the university they should be thrown out!
This goes further than just exercising their democratic right to protest.
I suggest they try the Gilmour defence -
1) I am a history student at Cambridge and have no idea what x is 2) I am not guilty due to being off my tits on illegal drugs and alcohol, voluntarily taken. 3) Show no contrition in court, and give the distinct impression that this is another speedbump in life for my parents money to get me over.
I’m quite sure that someone will be along shortly to defend criminal damage as “the only way to protest, effectively.”.
The funny thing is that the same someone will probably go postal at protests they don’t agree with. Because My Cause Is Justice.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
Indeed Darkage, however it is still a fact that the majority of pensioners are not rich and have big DB pensions. Only public sector have them nowadays and i private sector ethe average pot is not enough to feed a cat. There are as many poor pensioners as workers if not more. The obsession on here that pensioners all live a rosy life on 50K+ pensions, mortgage free mansions etc is mainly a deluded view of their own rich parents and no idea of real life.
I don't think anyone is suggesting all pensioners are well off.
I think what many are suggesting, I know I am, is that those pensioners who are well off should pay the same tax rate as anyone who is working for a living.
How about this.
- reducing significantly employee NI (say to 4-5%) and proportionately increase income tax levels across all categories (so including capital gains tax and dividend tax etc), perhaps by 1% to rebalance the tax system whilst retaining the principle of a contributory state pension system. - Make student loan repayments progressive so you don't get a 9% hit when you earn 25k. - Student loan payments can be deferred if they go in to saving for a first home. - address the punitive interest rates on student loans. - introduce more flexible degree options so as to reduce student loan exposure.
Did this story get discussed yesterday? I predict there will be no meaningful punishment. But it is nonetheless impressive the way that labour have taken the issue up. The right are starting to make gains in the 'war on woke'; the people that carry out these acts are helping the opposition, but the radical mindset is such that they will keep going.
It's criminal damage. So there could be a prosecution. It may possibly also amount to burglary. Just because you have general permission to enter a property does not give you permission to enter to steal or damage. The college could also take civil action for the value of the painting and the repair costs (assuming it can be repaired).
And if the person who did it and the one filming it are students of the college, presumably the college can also take disciplinary action.
The question is: a. does the law get enforced b. Is there any punishment. Or is it a case that reasons are found not to pursue either of the above in any meaningful way - which would be percieved as evidence of favouritism from the authorities towards progressive causes. That is why it is interesting to hear labour get on to this issue.
Come to think of it, it would be interesting to compare the responses to
1) people damaging ULEZ cameras 2) people doing the above protest
For the record both are arseholes, whose punishment should be determined by the level of damage and injury/risk of injury to others.
What is happening inside the Tory Party. This is like we’re back to 2018 again.
These people are utterly mad.
Johnson is high on his own supply and there are plenty of voters and MPs who consider his defenestration to be a massive injustice. It's all very Trumpian.
Fun fact of the day: there are 26 million spare bedrooms in England & Wales...
Um plausibility check! That's more than the number of households! A "household" is a group of people living together in a single address, usually a family. If you are right, it means that every family has a spare bedroom on average. I'll be honest with you, that doesn't seem plausible. Are you including things like hotels, prisons, student accommodation?
Will the Sun back Labour? I certainly think the Times will.
Jeremy Hunt gave a shout-out to The Sun in his budget speech. I'm not sure whether that is because they are still friends or because he wants them to be.
What is happening inside the Tory Party. This is like we’re back to 2018 again.
These people are utterly mad.
No, just desperate.
The hope is the Budget would turn the polls - presumably the last card will now be the Autumn Statement against a backdrop of falling inflation and interest rates and may be an income tax bribe to put Labour on the back foot.
That's basically all they have left before November apart from the age old "it'll be worse under Labour" which might have worked once but is now beyond irony (or goldy or silvery).
The more immediate issue now seems to be the May local elections - my guesstimate is about 5,300 seats up for grabs. I don't know the current disposition of these from a party perspective.
Comments
In 2019, his campaign collected $72 million in donations of $200 or less. But since launching his third White House bid in November 2022 and the end of last year, small donors have given just $27 million, according to data from the non-profit OpenSecrets.
Now it is perfectly possible that more people will contribute as the election gets closer but remember these figures compare 2019 with November 2022 to December 2023 so 14 months not 12 and it's just over 1/3 of the amount..
So that will be 2048 then
There are no breaks for pensioners on taxes , they have to pay all eligible taxes.
But look at the statistics on public sector employment. The majority of people coming through the system and retiring now will have defined benefit pensions. Beyond this, in the private sector, almost all of the working population will have some kind of contributory pension to supplement the state pension.
For the last 15 years I have been working in the public sector and observing colleagues go part time in their 50's and in many cases retire early as they have calculated that they don't need the money in retirement; the mortgage has been paid off, the kids have left home; they can take a lump sum early and then fall back on the state pension when they are eligible for it.
Whilst this is a minority of pensioners as a whole, it is not an insignificant fraction of the working population, it is a significant amount of people. People are incentivised to quit work early or build up fortunes to pass on.
So that's a lot of children to offset increases in mortgage payments.
[Johnson and Rees-Mogg have entered the chat.]
Pope Francis, I hope you rot in Hell.
It doesn't matter how much he tries to clarify the comment; his words will have been heard and listened to. It is not up to Ukraine to 'negotiate'; it is up to Russia to withdraw.
There's also a rather important moral issue. Despite what tankies and pro-Russians say, Ukraine did not start this war. The aggressor is obvious, and the aggression unsupportable. What Pope Francis says will lead to more war, not less.
(And yes, I have read the 'clarification' (1), It's shit.
(1): https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/03/09/vatican-pope-francis-white-flag-remark-a-call-for-negotiations-not-ukraines-surrender/
Have I got that right?
NEW: Hold a Referendum on quitting the ECHR on the same day as the Election - and have Boris Johnson lead the campaign, Tory MPs say
This year, it is down to 530,000.
2 lots of national insurance cuts so say £2400 (both adults)
but then you have fiscal drag on your income so that 5% wage increase is just offset by the NI cut if you are luck
5-10% on council tax so that's £100-400 extra in tax going out
And your mortgage repayment probably doubled...
I wonder how "illegally prorogue Parliament" fits under that?
Tory MPs in new plot to oust Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister - and they want Boris to save the Conservatives from a catastrophic defeat
State Pension in the U.K. is the lowest in Europe.
The entire election woulld be about Boris Johnson and everything he did in office (not much of the good stuff either). His day is done, the Conservatives know they are done too.
The fork is ready, the butter and marmalade prepared...
Sir Boyle Roche MP (Irish Parliament)
I have also done my time in the public sector and my retirement is close. Those who are working on into their 60s do so for three reasons:
1) They like their job, they derive value and worth from it and fear without that they would slip into an early mental and physical decline.
2) The children are still going through University - remember we are all having children later now. It's not uncommon for parents in their late 50s to have children at secondary school or going through Uni (which isn't the easy financial ride it was in my day - full student grant - subsidised bar - 25p per pint - golden days !!)
3) Late divorces - prticularly for women, splitting up in your 50s and going through a divorce causes financial damage and often means mortgages outstanding so they have to keep working.
This notion everyone in the public sector is retiring in their early 50s and living a life of leisure is another one of the Daily Mail's grotesque propaganda pieces and needs to be challenged and nailed down (ideally with some nails).
I’m sure the public will be overjoyed to have him back , being a pathological liar , who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days will be a huge hit on the doorsteps !
If part timers aren't benefiting then they can always decide to work more hours.
And of course one of the most pernicious ways our tax system treats people is the exorbitantly high marginal tax rate if you're poor, that means many people think they're no better off working any more than 16 hours. This tax change doesn't fix this but it is a (small) step in the right direction meaning that if people work more hours, they'll keep more of the extra money they earn.
Getting part timers to work full time instead, because work pays, is one of the easiest wins we could go for in fixing the tax system and would be the Laffer Curve in action. The state would pay out less in benefits, get more in taxes, and get all the multiplier consequentials of all that extra work elsewhere too. Cutting marginal taxes on the poorest in society is both morally and economically the right thing to do and this Budget in a small manner made this a bit better. Regardless of which party did it, it was the right thing to do.
Rather than no grant and tens of thousands of pounds of "debt" leading to an effectively permanent 9% tax rise for many people?
Gove simply wants to cause problems for Labour .
I know by my final year I had dropped down the order and needed help from the Bank of Dad but I graduated with a debt of £50 which, compared to what today's students end up with, was nothing.
And you're wrong about the graduate tax threshold being on good salaries. The threshold varies depending upon what plan you're on with the lowest threshold being £22,015 which is less than full time minimum wage from next month!
Current students will hit the threshold at just £25k salary. Not a good salary and barely over full time minimum wage.
The graduate tax, along with National Insurance should be abolished and you, I, the young and everyone else should be on the same tax rates.
Note; I’m only not sure.
Eight children and an adult die in Zanzibar after eating sea turtle meat
Another 78 people taken to hospital after consuming delicacy, which is known to cause food poisoning
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/09/eight-children-and-an-adult-die-in-zanzibar-after-eating-sea-turtle-meat-chelonitoxism
A warning for Leon on his itineroculinary* adventures.
*My neologism.
Of course there was also not the £9000+ student fees per year which really is the killer.
I think what many are suggesting, I know I am, is that those pensioners who are well off should pay the same tax rate as anyone who is working for a living.
Of course there was also not the £9000+ student fees per year which really is the killer.
But what will sink Trump is banging on about how disastrous the American economy is doing, when it is now powering ahead like nowhere else. The American voters will have cottoned on by November - and see how Trump is shit-talking their country.
I know its recovery from the water was controversial, and its rebuild even more so, but I cannot think of a better way of commemorating and furthering the memory of Donald Campbell.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-68489654
They don't know how to run a free country. They just don't.
Starting to find it remarkable they even won in 2019 at this point.
Merge NI into Income Tax, align the bands appropriately, and that gets fixed and everyone can pay the same rate of tax. What's wrong with that?
Why should someone on a defined benefit public sector pension not be paying NI while someone working for a living does?
You are a greedy clown who wants all the benefits and wants other people not to get them but pay extra for you, pathetic.
Which should probably be '... considering applying to join...'
It is a rather spectacular move away from its previous position, where it depended on Russia for protection. But now Russia has abandoned the CSTO, it seems they are looking towards the civilised west.
(There would be a massive amount of problems with Armenia joining the EU - more so than even Turkey. But even the process of joining can help a country modernise and improve.)
Pro-Russian channels are rather furious about this. Oh dear, how sad, etc...
Many pensioners can and do have children and there's no upper age limit from the parents perspective of claiming so what a stupid thing to ask.
You're counting the pension as a benefit aren't you, sunshine?
This is not a man who is going to turn around a 27-point polling deficit and win a general election.
Rishi Sunak has the unfortunate problem of sounding sarcastic whenever he speaks. I am not sure anyone has picked this up yet but it is not an appealing quality.
They saw what Labour did and have decided they want to do it instead. Is there anyone at Number 10 who knows what they are doing?
Difficult to break this down by immigration status, but using white-only v other households*, I find that the average white household has 1.1 spare bedrooms, while non-white has 0.6. If we lived all lived like non-white households, there would be additional 10 million bedrooms available in E&W.
London is by far the most efficient user of bedrooms, as you would expect. Wales, bits of Yorkshire, Cheshire, Rutland have loads of spare space in the existing housing stock. Using my own dodgy indicator, Leicester, Enfield, Harrow and Redbridge are deeply unequal LAs, with relatively high overcrowding for the number of rooms available.
(* Yes, I know this is a terrible metric and non-white people aren't all recent immigrants.)
Amidst the crowd of demonstrators a man has the temerity to hold up a sign saying Hamas are terrorists. Soon enough a courageous figure in the crowd decides to tear the poster down and a small scuffle emerges. Thankfully the police are soon on hand to remove the troublemaker and make sure he is quickly on his way to the police station for a breach of the peace.
https://twitter.com/Anitaaaa_W/status/1766521064853569701
I believe the arrested gentleman is Iranian. Perhaps he's an agent sent in by the Ayatollahs to cause trouble in the UK?
Azerbaijan will try to connect its exclave to the rest of its territory sooner or later, and this means (probably) taking the southern border with Iran. Iran will be on Armenia's side, but the Azeris have agreements with Turkey and Israel. No idea if that'd involve them actually joining the war, but Russia, formerly Armenia's backer as you mentioned, won't be doing a damned thing.
As for Reform UK, I think banging on about how the government has failed (because there’s no point in leaving the ECHR if the Govt hasn’t failed) will do more to swell the Reform vote than to squeeze it.
Mind you, for people whose only income is PAYE the requirement is going the other way... the threshold for needing to do a tax return is being raised from £100k to £150k.
1) I am a history student at Cambridge and have no idea what x is
2) I am not guilty due to being off my tits on illegal drugs and alcohol, voluntarily taken.
3) Show no contrition in court, and give the distinct impression that this is another speedbump in life for my parents money to get me over.
I’m quite sure that someone will be along shortly to defend criminal damage as “the only way to protest, effectively.”.
The funny thing is that the same someone will probably go postal at protests they don’t agree with. Because My Cause Is Justice.
These people are utterly mad.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/householdandresidentcharacteristicsenglandandwales/census2021
- reducing significantly employee NI (say to 4-5%) and proportionately increase income tax levels across all categories (so including capital gains tax and dividend tax etc), perhaps by 1% to rebalance the tax system whilst retaining the principle of a contributory state pension system.
- Make student loan repayments progressive so you don't get a 9% hit when you earn 25k.
- Student loan payments can be deferred if they go in to saving for a first home.
- address the punitive interest rates on student loans.
- introduce more flexible degree options so as to reduce student loan exposure.
1) people damaging ULEZ cameras
2) people doing the above protest
For the record both are arseholes, whose punishment should be determined by the level of damage and injury/risk of injury to others.
Interesting stuff.
49GW worth of proposed new supply was put in as an application to national grid in January alone.
They are swamped with so many applications they can't cope.
Meanwhile housing developments on hold because they can't get a connection.
What a bloody mess this country is in after 14 years of the clown show.
The hope is the Budget would turn the polls - presumably the last card will now be the Autumn Statement against a backdrop of falling inflation and interest rates and may be an income tax bribe to put Labour on the back foot.
That's basically all they have left before November apart from the age old "it'll be worse under Labour" which might have worked once but is now beyond irony (or goldy or silvery).
The more immediate issue now seems to be the May local elections - my guesstimate is about 5,300 seats up for grabs. I don't know the current disposition of these from a party perspective.