1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I also wasn't saying don't do any of those things, I was saying get the basics right first and foremost. If there is money to do the nice to haves great.
Not polluting our rivers and stopping them from flooding everywhere are 'nice to haves?'
Water is privatised, give ofwat more teeth
Rivers aren't privatised, and nor is the sea. Sewage discharges relating to water companies is a source of pollution for those, but a long way from being the only one.
In any event, you now seem to be suggesting the fines imposed should be spent on cleaning up the mess. Again, not what you originally said - you were suggesting that none of that should be done until your list was attended to.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I also wasn't saying don't do any of those things, I was saying get the basics right first and foremost. If there is money to do the nice to haves great.
Not polluting our rivers and stopping them from flooding everywhere are 'nice to haves?'
Water is privatised, give ofwat more teeth
Flood defences are central government, not the water companies.
In 2007 when we had those terrible floods they were run by Susan Acland-Hood, now overseeing the disaster at the DfE having crashed the legal system in the meanwhile.
I would make ofwat also responsible for flooding and allow them to object to developments on the grounds of flooding downstream or in the development. Then if developers want to build there they get to pay for the flood defences
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
I can understand the desire to prioritise, but I expect a government to be able to delegate effectively, and so to be able to make improvements on multiple priorities.
If I was to have a government prioritise just one thing, then it would be to improve leadership in general, so that central government could delegate confident that lower rungs of leadership would be working effectively to make marginal gains, spread good practice and correct mistakes.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
I think that would be contrary to Pagan2's ethos for government funding cuts.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I also wasn't saying don't do any of those things, I was saying get the basics right first and foremost. If there is money to do the nice to haves great.
Not polluting our rivers and stopping them from flooding everywhere are 'nice to haves?'
Water is privatised, give ofwat more teeth
Flood defences are central government, not the water companies.
In 2007 when we had those terrible floods they were run by Susan Acland-Hood, now overseeing the disaster at the DfE having crashed the legal system in the meanwhile.
I would make ofwat also responsible for flooding and allow them to object to developments on the grounds of flooding downstream or in the development. Then if developers want to build there they get to pay for the flood defences
I am sure if OFWAT were responsible for flood defences there would be more flooding.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I also wasn't saying don't do any of those things, I was saying get the basics right first and foremost. If there is money to do the nice to haves great.
Not polluting our rivers and stopping them from flooding everywhere are 'nice to haves?'
Water is privatised, give ofwat more teeth
Flood defences are central government, not the water companies.
In 2007 when we had those terrible floods they were run by Susan Acland-Hood, now overseeing the disaster at the DfE having crashed the legal system in the meanwhile.
I would make ofwat also responsible for flooding and allow them to object to developments on the grounds of flooding downstream or in the development. Then if developers want to build there they get to pay for the flood defences
I am sure if OFWAT were responsible for flood defences there would be more flooding.
Well considering we currently have civil servants, including the ms Hood you mentioned responsible for flooding yet we have had ever more flooding....I am not sure that argument carries the weight you think it might.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
OK sack them, and the royal family too bloody scroungers. How much have we saved so far to put into the health service, justice system, defence, education and the safety net?
What about repaying government debt? Kind of a waste of money, but might be tricky
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
OK sack them, and the royal family too bloody scroungers. How much have we saved so far to put into the health service, justice system, defence, education and the safety net?
What about repaying government debt? Kind of a waste of money, but might be tricky
Obviously debt needs to be repayed because we will want to borrow at some point for infrastructure
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Pointless gesture politics.
Its a gesture to have good education to 18, a working system for law and order, a working safety net and health care system and have a functional defence force? Its a view I guess but a stupid one
You know, I know, everyone knows, that the problematic part of your idea is the last 6 words.
It's an interesting concept, from a libertarian point of view, that you should get the 'basics' right before moving on to the harder stuff, or else the whole thing collapses.
Good government isn't simply allocating a fixed percentage to every requirement, it's about saying some things are more important than others. You could argue, for example, that we should privatise the roads in order to raise money to create a much better free public healthcare system.
Or you could argue that once certain basic conditions are met by the state, it shouldn't be interfering in anything else.
Fringe opinions, for sure. But certainly not pointless gesture politics, nor applicable to the hard choices the state has to make now, in the face of limited resources and multiple competing demands.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
Good government is about paying for the things we need, not just the things we see.
Almost 2.7 billion records of personal information for people in the United States were leaked on a hacking forum, exposing names, social security numbers, all known physical addresses, and possible aliases.
The data allegedly comes from National Public Data, a company that collects and sells access to personal data for use in background checks, to obtain criminal records, and for private investigators.
National Public Data is believed to scrape this information from public sources to compile individual user profiles for people in the US and other countries.
Not the worst mistake to be honest. The weird nervous laugh is more of an issue I suspect.
They think Harris is 'weird' with her laugh?
Considering Vilsack has been Ag Sec both for Obama and Biden, in office for over a decade, it's bizarre that a U.S. Senator, talking about agricultural policy, doesn't recall him.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
Good government is about paying for the things we need, not just the things we see.
So when we can't afford to pay for everything you think we need what do you do? Print money? Borrow more?
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
Some of it is soft diplomatic support for British business, some security and espionage, some gathering of open source information, some of it military, some of it aid and development work, and there is a lot of visa work. Only a minority of staff are based overseas, and most embassy staff overseas are local employees.
Freddie Sayers @freddiesayers · 21m The Drudge Report, once considered the most powerful Right-wing website in America, is now not only anti-Trump but actively pro-Kamala Harris.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
Good government is about paying for the things we need, not just the things we see.
So when we can't afford to pay for everything you think we need what do you do? Print money? Borrow more?
We can afford to pay for everything we need. The country isn't broke.
We could afford more. We pay less tax than most developed countries. And sensible investment will save money in the long run.
Freddie Sayers @freddiesayers · 21m The Drudge Report, once considered the most powerful Right-wing website in America, is now not only anti-Trump but actively pro-Kamala Harris.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
OK sack them, and the royal family too bloody scroungers. How much have we saved so far to put into the health service, justice system, defence, education and the safety net?
What about repaying government debt? Kind of a waste of money, but might be tricky
Obviously debt needs to be repayed because we will want to borrow at some point for infrastructure
It wasn't on your list though.
You started off with a hard list, and now accept there is a load of other stuff but reckon some of it could be done more efficiently.
In reality, you need to go through what you want to cut based on more than your vague impression with no real knowledge, and quantify the savings - I am sure there are quite a few out there. But your definitive list of what we should do, and nothing else, until it was to your satisfaction, was idiotic. And you're not even really standing by it.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
Some of it is soft diplomatic support for British business, some security and espionage, some gathering of open source information, some of it military, some of it aid and development work, and there is a lot of visa work. Only a minority of staff are based overseas, and most embassy staff overseas are local employees.
British business is private enterprise it can fund its own soft support, security and espionage comes under defence as does military. Open source information can be gathered by the people that need it because its open source. Visa work can be handled by the consulate officer and yes it may take longer for those to be processed but you know what they aren't british citizens....alternatively make it a self funding post from visa fees. Aid and development is not I think a foreign office job in any case surely its DFID
Freddie Sayers @freddiesayers · 21m The Drudge Report, once considered the most powerful Right-wing website in America, is now not only anti-Trump but actively pro-Kamala Harris.
Any reason?
Trump being a threat to democracy, a convicted felon, someone who has repeatedly sexually assaulted women, and who is going demented aren't enough reasons?
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Of course. And I'd suggest that this is an inevitable feature of using the state-run tax-funded model to get stuff done. Indeed it would be very strange if this wasn't happening.
At all levels, government is destined to have to make hard choices, and destined to make the 'wrong' ones, at least in some folks minds.
As a Libertarian I instinctively question whether this is a desireable situation, and if certain responsibilities and decision-making should be extricated from the state. Maybe in time a smaller, less powerful, state that has fewer tough decisions to make would become popular, given that fewer people would be disappointed with the decisions it made.
People piling on @Pagan2 . But he's actually come up with a list. And is prepared to stick around and defend his thinking. Now you can agree or disagree with his list. But it's a damn sight improvement on posters who simply call for a smaller state then bugger off without any clue as to what they'd cut. Things they don't like usually.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
Good government is about paying for the things we need, not just the things we see.
So when we can't afford to pay for everything you think we need what do you do? Print money? Borrow more?
We can afford to pay for everything we need. The country isn't broke.
We could afford more. We pay less tax than most developed countries. And sensible investment will save money in the long run.
Who are you planning to tax exactly? The only way to raise a significant amount is to up the basic rate...you know those people struggling to reach the end of the month before their pay runs out
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Of course. And I'd suggest that this is an inevitable feature of using the state-run tax-funded model to get stuff done. Indeed it would be very strange if this wasn't happening.
At all levels, government is destined to have to make hard choices, and destined to make the 'wrong' ones, at least in some folks minds.
As a Libertarian I instinctively question whether this is a desireable situation, and if certain responsibilities and decision-making should be extricated from the state. Maybe in time a smaller, less powerful, state that has fewer tough decisions to make would become popular, given that fewer people would be disappointed with the decisions it made.
People piling on @Pagan2 . But he's actually come up with a list. And is prepared to stick around and defend his thinking. Now you can agree or disagree with his list. But it's a damn sight improvement on posters who simply call for a smaller state then bugger off without any clue as to what they'd cut. Things they don't like usually.
Thank you for the kind words and as I said not saying its the only thing the state should do, just saying get that working first then if there is cash left over pick the next most important thing etc
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
Good government is about paying for the things we need, not just the things we see.
So when we can't afford to pay for everything you think we need what do you do? Print money? Borrow more?
We can afford to pay for everything we need. The country isn't broke.
We could afford more. We pay less tax than most developed countries. And sensible investment will save money in the long run.
Who are you planning to tax exactly? The only way to raise a significant amount is to up the basic rate...you know those people struggling to reach the end of the month before their pay runs out
I don't think we need to tax anyone struggling to reach the end of the month more. Lots of people aren't struggling to reach the end of the month.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
I think that would be contrary to Pagan2's ethos for government funding cuts.
The Foreign Office does exactly what the name suggests - it's the Office for looking after the interests of Foreign governments.
He's going to be tough to beat in the leadership contest.
He's exactly the wrong person. He's exactly the type the public hate in the recent Tories, smarmy, say anything to get elected, doesn't believe a word he's saying.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
Good government is about paying for the things we need, not just the things we see.
So when we can't afford to pay for everything you think we need what do you do? Print money? Borrow more?
We can afford to pay for everything we need. The country isn't broke.
We could afford more. We pay less tax than most developed countries. And sensible investment will save money in the long run.
Who are you planning to tax exactly? The only way to raise a significant amount is to up the basic rate...you know those people struggling to reach the end of the month before their pay runs out
I don't think we need to tax anyone struggling to reach the end of the month more. Lots of people aren't struggling to reach the end of the month.
Not nearly as many as you think, even people on 100k can be struggling because that mortgage they took out when interest rates were low is eating their pay now (yes I know they should have considered that so its their own fault to an extent, however when interest rates are artificially low for 2 decades many wont have experience of normal rates). Hell we have had people here posting about how disgusting it is that a nurse on 36k a year has to use a food bank.
People piling on @Pagan2 . But he's actually come up with a list. And is prepared to stick around and defend his thinking. Now you can agree or disagree with his list. But it's a damn sight improvement on posters who simply call for a smaller state then bugger off without any clue as to what they'd cut. Things they don't like usually.
Thank you for the kind words and as I said not saying its the only thing the state should do, just saying get that working first then if there is cash left over pick the next most important thing etc
It's an interesting approach. I'm not particularly in agreement with you politically. Or maybe I am? But getting a small number of things within the government's control really right. Then filtering down to the rest? It's almost the New Labour pledge card
The point I am trying to make is not even lower the tax rate, just get the essentials fully funded first then look where to spend the extra if you have any. I just abhor the we will do all the stuff but do it half arsed because we can't afford to do it properly model which we currently seem to be running
Freddie Sayers @freddiesayers · 21m The Drudge Report, once considered the most powerful Right-wing website in America, is now not only anti-Trump but actively pro-Kamala Harris.
Any reason?
Trump is a psychopath who enabled a crowd to run riot in an attempt to overthrow the election results, an action that nearly succeeded and did result in at least one death and a gibbet being built intended for his Vice President
I don't know if that's *the*'reason why Drudge has repositioned, but it has to be a candidate, surely.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Which is why I came out with a set of basic functions the government needs to ensure work. Those are ones people can see very visibly. Once people see those working they are happier about the tax they pay
Good government is about paying for the things we need, not just the things we see.
So when we can't afford to pay for everything you think we need what do you do? Print money? Borrow more?
We can afford to pay for everything we need. The country isn't broke.
We could afford more. We pay less tax than most developed countries. And sensible investment will save money in the long run.
Who are you planning to tax exactly? The only way to raise a significant amount is to up the basic rate...you know those people struggling to reach the end of the month before their pay runs out
I don't think we need to tax anyone struggling to reach the end of the month more. Lots of people aren't struggling to reach the end of the month.
People piling on @Pagan2 . But he's actually come up with a list. And is prepared to stick around and defend his thinking. Now you can agree or disagree with his list. But it's a damn sight improvement on posters who simply call for a smaller state then bugger off without any clue as to what they'd cut. Things they don't like usually.
Thank you for the kind words and as I said not saying its the only thing the state should do, just saying get that working first then if there is cash left over pick the next most important thing etc
It's an interesting approach. I'm not particularly in agreement with you politically. Or maybe I am? But getting a small number of things within the government's control really right. Then filtering down to the rest? It's almost the New Labour pledge card
I am not trying to come it from any political point of view tbh, just saying what seems sensible. Do the important things properly then see what else we can do. Now I accept if people had a different list of whats important and that would be a political point of view. My list of 5 was something I thought most would see as the important stuff
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Of course. And I'd suggest that this is an inevitable feature of using the state-run tax-funded model to get stuff done. Indeed it would be very strange if this wasn't happening.
At all levels, government is destined to have to make hard choices, and destined to make the 'wrong' ones, at least in some folks minds.
As a Libertarian I instinctively question whether this is a desireable situation, and if certain responsibilities and decision-making should be extricated from the state. Maybe in time a smaller, less powerful, state that has fewer tough decisions to make would become popular, given that fewer people would be disappointed with the decisions it made.
I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure it works that way- hence the neat but nasty paradox.
There's a whole pile of expensive stuff where the taxpayer is the payer of last resort. Health and social care are the obvious examples, financial safety nets for those who really aren't in a state to work is another. I don't see who else would be willing (or able) to fund those, and I'm pretty sure we're at the limits of how much they can be squeezed. And just cutting them would have consequences for society that we wouldn't particularly want. (How much crime and anti-social behaviour globally is driven by the destitute?)
We could shrink the state to just to those things and nothing else. But for most of us, that would mean paying in and getting very little to nothing out.
Why wasn't he released after being found innocent? (Sorry for being too lazy to find out myself).
In the end, it came down to the ghouls on the Supreme Court. ...The bar to Maharaj’s release was a law that meant evidence of innocence was not enough to free him – and last year the US federal supreme court declined to review it...
The point I am trying to make is not even lower the tax rate, just get the essentials fully funded first then look where to spend the extra if you have any. I just abhor the we will do all the stuff but do it half arsed because we can't afford to do it properly model which we currently seem to be running
Working in the public sector - I am entirely 100% enjoying my current 'professional management' giving us the full "Well, this is how IBM do things!" ITIL plan. If we had a budget of a few £100m and a team of 5,000 it might make sense. A team of two folk and a budget of £0.10 - not so much.
Thank goodness the professional management are so cheap. Otherwise it might (might!) seem like quite a waste of time and money.
It makes me wonder if this is just rife through the whole system, outside of my own little bubble.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
I think that would be contrary to Pagan2's ethos for government funding cuts.
The Foreign Office does exactly what the name suggests - it's the Office for looking after the interests of Foreign governments.
Once upon a time this was a website for sophisticated debate…
Are Labour setting up a 1970s style inflationary spiral for 2026?
No.
...the new offer is for a 5% backdated pay rise for 2022/23, a 4.75% rise for 23/24, and 4.5% increase for 24/25...
Unis have offered 2.5%. With most everyone else getting 5% etc I think a fight is coming.
Offered to the Principles and VP's? Is that what you mean? For they, being the selfless servants of education and enlightenment that they are - they are willing to take a hit for the honest underling who will get inflation-busting offers?
Are Labour setting up a 1970s style inflationary spiral for 2026?
No.
...the new offer is for a 5% backdated pay rise for 2022/23, a 4.75% rise for 23/24, and 4.5% increase for 24/25...
Unis have offered 2.5%. With most everyone else getting 5% etc I think a fight is coming.
A lot of Unis' finances are buggered, and government isn't rushing to bail them out. It may be nasty.
I think it will be. We have 400 missing post grads in the 2024 intake, and are going to take more UG to make up for it. Bath is also financially far better off than most (outgoing VC has been very prudent). So Bath can afford a decent pay rise but is stuck in national agreements. Other places are less strong. I hear that Hull is closing its chemistry department. Not good.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Of course. And I'd suggest that this is an inevitable feature of using the state-run tax-funded model to get stuff done. Indeed it would be very strange if this wasn't happening.
At all levels, government is destined to have to make hard choices, and destined to make the 'wrong' ones, at least in some folks minds.
As a Libertarian I instinctively question whether this is a desireable situation, and if certain responsibilities and decision-making should be extricated from the state. Maybe in time a smaller, less powerful, state that has fewer tough decisions to make would become popular, given that fewer people would be disappointed with the decisions it made.
I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure it works that way- hence the neat but nasty paradox.
There's a whole pile of expensive stuff where the taxpayer is the payer of last resort. Health and social care are the obvious examples, financial safety nets for those who really aren't in a state to work is another. I don't see who else would be willing (or able) to fund those, and I'm pretty sure we're at the limits of how much they can be squeezed. And just cutting them would have consequences for society that we wouldn't particularly want. (How much crime and anti-social behaviour globally is driven by the destitute?)
We could shrink the state to just to those things and nothing else. But for most of us, that would mean paying in and getting very little to nothing out.
Most people like me feel we get next to nothing out anyway apart from nhs, education if we have kids, and bin collection
If we get robbed the police won't do anything If we want a doctors appointment we need to wait for 2 to 3 weeks (in my case I moved 2 years, am still trying to register with my local gp for example) my bin gets collected every 3 weeks Last time I got laid off, trying to sign on was a nightmare and only did it after being out of work a month and I ended up with money but the housing benefit + uc didnt even cover my rent and no wasnt in a particually expensive place just wasnt a mould ridden shit hole and couldn't have moved as how do you raise the deposit for the new place....on top of which I got sanctioned and lost my benefits for not looking for work just after they signed off on my expenses for attending 7 interviews in the last 2 weeks...why because I didn't use their web search to look for work....because all the jobs were min wage shop work. This still in my jsa period as only been off a work. My caseworked even said its not right appeal you will win but it will take several months.
Yeah I feel I get very little bank for the 15k tax and ni I pay and don't believe the state has my back if I fall on hard times
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Of course. And I'd suggest that this is an inevitable feature of using the state-run tax-funded model to get stuff done. Indeed it would be very strange if this wasn't happening.
At all levels, government is destined to have to make hard choices, and destined to make the 'wrong' ones, at least in some folks minds.
As a Libertarian I instinctively question whether this is a desireable situation, and if certain responsibilities and decision-making should be extricated from the state. Maybe in time a smaller, less powerful, state that has fewer tough decisions to make would become popular, given that fewer people would be disappointed with the decisions it made.
I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure it works that way- hence the neat but nasty paradox.
There's a whole pile of expensive stuff where the taxpayer is the payer of last resort. Health and social care are the obvious examples, financial safety nets for those who really aren't in a state to work is another. I don't see who else would be willing (or able) to fund those, and I'm pretty sure we're at the limits of how much they can be squeezed. And just cutting them would have consequences for society that we wouldn't particularly want. (How much crime and anti-social behaviour globally is driven by the destitute?)
We could shrink the state to just to those things and nothing else. But for most of us, that would mean paying in and getting very little to nothing out.
Most people like me feel we get next to nothing out anyway apart from nhs, education if we have kids, and bin collection
If we get robbed the police won't do anything If we want a doctors appointment we need to wait for 2 to 3 weeks (in my case I moved 2 years, am still trying to register with my local gp for example) my bin gets collected every 3 weeks Last time I got laid off, trying to sign on was a nightmare and only did it after being out of work a month and I ended up with money but the housing benefit + uc didnt even cover my rent and no wasnt in a particually expensive place just wasnt a mould ridden shit hole and couldn't have moved as how do you raise the deposit for the new place....on top of which I got sanctioned and lost my benefits for not looking for work just after they signed off on my expenses for attending 7 interviews in the last 2 weeks...why because I didn't use their web search to look for work....because all the jobs were min wage shop work. This still in my jsa period as only been off a work. My caseworked even said its not right appeal you will win but it will take several months.
Yeah I feel I get very little bank for the 15k tax and ni I pay and don't believe the state has my back if I fall on hard times
Indeed. I got sod all when I got elbowed out of my job because I had savings.
The state won't help you, if you can help yourself. Which in my view makes it a bit pointless contributing to both your own hard times fund, and the one the state forces you to pay into.
I've paid hundreds of grand in tax over the course of my lifetime but I'm not entitled to tuppence if I become unemployed.
The point I am trying to make is not even lower the tax rate, just get the essentials fully funded first then look where to spend the extra if you have any. I just abhor the we will do all the stuff but do it half arsed because we can't afford to do it properly model which we currently seem to be running
Working in the public sector - I am entirely 100% enjoying my current 'professional management' giving us the full "Well, this is how IBM do things!" ITIL plan. If we had a budget of a few £100m and a team of 5,000 it might make sense. A team of two folk and a budget of £0.10 - not so much.
Thank goodness the professional management are so cheap. Otherwise it might (might!) seem like quite a waste of time and money.
It makes me wonder if this is just rife through the whole system, outside of my own little bubble.
Nope happens in the private sector too, have you read the phoenix project? Its a description of most companies I have worked for...upper management have no idea because they haven't actually been hands on techies for far too long and go for buzz words to help them polish their cv's
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Yes, let's not bother mending any potholes, keeping the railways safe, providing any sports facilities or any social care that isn't directly healthcare, cleaning up any polluted rivers, addressing flood risks, having any kind of industrial policy, funding research or tertiary education, running embassies etc etc until Pagan is happy about an arbitrary list of stuff. Because of course none of those underpin the success of the economy needed to do those things and can be left to go to hell.
Tbf, we already don't do quite a lot of that. Potholes, pollution, flood risks, Tertiary Ed.
Of course, we *should* be doing them but we're not and I doubt if that will change any time soon.
I wonder if, psychologically, that's part of the problem. If we think year-by-year, most of us don't see a good link between the taxes we personally pay and the services we personally receive.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
Of course. And I'd suggest that this is an inevitable feature of using the state-run tax-funded model to get stuff done. Indeed it would be very strange if this wasn't happening.
At all levels, government is destined to have to make hard choices, and destined to make the 'wrong' ones, at least in some folks minds.
As a Libertarian I instinctively question whether this is a desireable situation, and if certain responsibilities and decision-making should be extricated from the state. Maybe in time a smaller, less powerful, state that has fewer tough decisions to make would become popular, given that fewer people would be disappointed with the decisions it made.
I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure it works that way- hence the neat but nasty paradox.
There's a whole pile of expensive stuff where the taxpayer is the payer of last resort. Health and social care are the obvious examples, financial safety nets for those who really aren't in a state to work is another. I don't see who else would be willing (or able) to fund those, and I'm pretty sure we're at the limits of how much they can be squeezed. And just cutting them would have consequences for society that we wouldn't particularly want. (How much crime and anti-social behaviour globally is driven by the destitute?)
We could shrink the state to just to those things and nothing else. But for most of us, that would mean paying in and getting very little to nothing out.
Most people like me feel we get next to nothing out anyway apart from nhs, education if we have kids, and bin collection
If we get robbed the police won't do anything If we want a doctors appointment we need to wait for 2 to 3 weeks (in my case I moved 2 years, am still trying to register with my local gp for example) my bin gets collected every 3 weeks Last time I got laid off, trying to sign on was a nightmare and only did it after being out of work a month and I ended up with money but the housing benefit + uc didnt even cover my rent and no wasnt in a particually expensive place just wasnt a mould ridden shit hole and couldn't have moved as how do you raise the deposit for the new place....on top of which I got sanctioned and lost my benefits for not looking for work just after they signed off on my expenses for attending 7 interviews in the last 2 weeks...why because I didn't use their web search to look for work....because all the jobs were min wage shop work. This still in my jsa period as only been off a work. My caseworked even said its not right appeal you will win but it will take several months.
Yeah I feel I get very little bank for the 15k tax and ni I pay and don't believe the state has my back if I fall on hard times
Indeed. I got sod all when I got elbowed out of my job because I had savings.
The state won't help you, if you can help yourself. Which in my view makes it a bit pointless contributing to both your own hard times fund, and the one the state forces you to pay into.
I've paid hundreds of grand in tax over the course of my lifetime but I'm not entitled to tuppence if I become unemployed.
I didn't even have savings because between paying rent, bills etc I was trying to spin the money to the end of the month. Rent was 1200 my pay 2400....by the time I paid council tax, gas, electric, transport to work I was left with maybe 500
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
Spot on by @robertshrimsley . One of the first obligations of a democracy is to defend itself from anti-democratic methods: the rule of the fist & the firebomb.
An obscure website accused of fuelling a wave of riots in the UK with an inaccurate story is partly based in Pakistan.
Here, ITV News Global Security Editor @RohitKachrooITV tracks down Farhan Asif to ask him about his role in Channel3Now, which was shut down hours later.
The point I am trying to make is not even lower the tax rate, just get the essentials fully funded first then look where to spend the extra if you have any. I just abhor the we will do all the stuff but do it half arsed because we can't afford to do it properly model which we currently seem to be running
Working in the public sector - I am entirely 100% enjoying my current 'professional management' giving us the full "Well, this is how IBM do things!" ITIL plan. If we had a budget of a few £100m and a team of 5,000 it might make sense. A team of two folk and a budget of £0.10 - not so much.
Thank goodness the professional management are so cheap. Otherwise it might (might!) seem like quite a waste of time and money.
It makes me wonder if this is just rife through the whole system, outside of my own little bubble.
Nope happens in the private sector too, have you read the phoenix project? Its a description of most companies I have worked for...upper management have no idea because they haven't actually been hands on techies for far too long and go for buzz words to help them polish their cv's
Yup. I remember working for a large finance group who had taken on a contract to process mortgage applications. As part of their trial period they had a penalty for anyone they approved who shouldn't have been - but no penalty for rejecting people who should have been approved.
So they just dumped the work on existing staff who already had more work than they could handle.
I remember two solid weeks of having literally two keyboards in front of me just pressing the F-key for 'reject' as fast as I could so they'd pass the probation period on the ludicrous contract.
This is just repeated over and over. I'm sure somewhere, somehow, someone is making good bank from it.
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth) minus - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
I used to rent somewhere that was about 12-13% of my take home pay. Never appreciated it at the time.
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
They upweight the fact a cheap Chinese telly has gone from £350 to £250 due to dumping or loss leaders from Amazon on Black Friday, while ignoring the fact that most people's heating bill has doubled, and rents are going up by about 9% a year (Source: FT, earlier today, see https://www.ft.com/content/70a9eb59-1ef1-4469-af89-c47a9bdfa027 ).
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
If the far-right is such a significant force in the UK, why did far-right parties get pretty much zero votes at the election, due to the fact that no far-right parties put up candidates, (unless you include Heritage which got about 0.02%). By contrast, the far-right got 33% and 37% in the two rounds of the French election.
Yes - in the UK, there aren't really any true 'far right' parties, because they don't exist. I think they are proscribed.
This term ('far right') is more often used as a way of associating something someone doesn't like, with something evil (fascism) - sort of a rhetorical trick. Its use is often revealing of the politics on the part of the person involved, they are probably part of the 'liberal elite'.
Looking at the Reform party, and reading its manifesto, its ideas are not very radical, they seem to me to be part of the political mainstream. I'm saying that in all honesty, not to try and shock people. I don't see much real difference between Labour and the Reform party, other than the labour manifesto is perhaps more realistic and deliverable.
If you then consider all the main British political parties to be of a similar vein, what would you look for in a Party to mark it as distinct and (perhaps) worthy of your support?
There seems on here to be a strong conservative voice which feels politically homeless now - by conservative I mean "small state" so lower taxes and cuts in spending.
The problem is we cannot afford a "small state". Small state works when the economy is growing and the tax revenues generated allow the public finances to be kept either in balance or surplus. With weaker growth, it becomes much harder to balance the bookes without resorting to either tax rises or damaging spending cuts.
These are interesting questions. I generally just see hazards with all the options, so go for the safest one, this time around it was the labour party. Trump v Harris is a genuinely difficult one that fortunately I don't have to make. The issues are obvious with Trump but I don't think people really see the enormity of the potential problems with Harris and the Democrats.
Notwithstanding all that, I am receptive to the idea that something needs to change fundamentally, so could be persuaded by a start up party, one with totally different ideas to the mainstream.
I think the 'small state' idea is dead, it was disproved by the pandemic. There are legitimate questions though as to what the state should do however.
I don't think it was the pandemic that killed it, rather austerity of the type Cameron and Osborne chose as politically feasible. Their theory was that the post-2008 deficit was an opportunity to make cuts to the state because it made cutbacks much more popular than was the case. Once you'd sorted the deficit you could then do tax cuts that made that settlement permanent as Labour would be terrified of putting up people's taxes and/or borrowing.
It didn't work out that way as they chose to salami slice and pick the politically easiest cuts, and to protect older people and homeowners, as their voters. The result being to cut but get nowhere fast as many things that were ditched - like infrastructure spending - proved counterproductive longer term. Or starving councils of cash while limiting their tax raising abilities at a time when the number of elderly people needing it was set to rocket.
Meanwhile, things like the winter fuel allowance and triple lock remained sacrosanct even as the bill to the state goes up. While it feels to everyone that their community and services are decaying if you're outside an area that's attracting investment.
Anyway, it's killed the small state as an idea for a while - because it didn't work - which is not to say it couldn't work. But only if those doing it are braver and less Machiavellian and self-interested. The only way it can come back I think is someone suggesting that the government just shouldn't do some pretty significant things at all. Which probably only happens if technology reaches a point where that abandoning those things is fairly cost free to the public.
I don't think the small state is as unpopular as you think, probably 60% of people don't get benefit from the large state apart from the nhs. There crimes aren't solved, social care cost their relatives money if they saved any or have an asset etc.
Social housing is a prime example.....not saying its a bad idea....just since the 70's when it was allocated on a needs first basis most people don't see themselves ever getting to the top of the list.
To put some numbers on that, 54% of UK residents are net recipients from the state, while 46% contribute.
About 46% of non-retired people are net recipients. So it's pretty close - though much depends on the measurement of in-kind benefits and so on.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
To be fair, you would expect one person in the UK, for every person posted abroad. Ant there are also some very big countries out there. I can see how the UK would have 1,000+ in the US, and probably hundreds in Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany and France.
If the far-right is such a significant force in the UK, why did far-right parties get pretty much zero votes at the election, due to the fact that no far-right parties put up candidates, (unless you include Heritage which got about 0.02%). By contrast, the far-right got 33% and 37% in the two rounds of the French election.
Yes - in the UK, there aren't really any true 'far right' parties, because they don't exist. I think they are proscribed.
This term ('far right') is more often used as a way of associating something someone doesn't like, with something evil (fascism) - sort of a rhetorical trick. Its use is often revealing of the politics on the part of the person involved, they are probably part of the 'liberal elite'.
Looking at the Reform party, and reading its manifesto, its ideas are not very radical, they seem to me to be part of the political mainstream. I'm saying that in all honesty, not to try and shock people. I don't see much real difference between Labour and the Reform party, other than the labour manifesto is perhaps more realistic and deliverable.
If you then consider all the main British political parties to be of a similar vein, what would you look for in a Party to mark it as distinct and (perhaps) worthy of your support?
There seems on here to be a strong conservative voice which feels politically homeless now - by conservative I mean "small state" so lower taxes and cuts in spending.
The problem is we cannot afford a "small state". Small state works when the economy is growing and the tax revenues generated allow the public finances to be kept either in balance or surplus. With weaker growth, it becomes much harder to balance the bookes without resorting to either tax rises or damaging spending cuts.
These are interesting questions. I generally just see hazards with all the options, so go for the safest one, this time around it was the labour party. Trump v Harris is a genuinely difficult one that fortunately I don't have to make. The issues are obvious with Trump but I don't think people really see the enormity of the potential problems with Harris and the Democrats.
Notwithstanding all that, I am receptive to the idea that something needs to change fundamentally, so could be persuaded by a start up party, one with totally different ideas to the mainstream.
I think the 'small state' idea is dead, it was disproved by the pandemic. There are legitimate questions though as to what the state should do however.
I don't think it was the pandemic that killed it, rather austerity of the type Cameron and Osborne chose as politically feasible. Their theory was that the post-2008 deficit was an opportunity to make cuts to the state because it made cutbacks much more popular than was the case. Once you'd sorted the deficit you could then do tax cuts that made that settlement permanent as Labour would be terrified of putting up people's taxes and/or borrowing.
It didn't work out that way as they chose to salami slice and pick the politically easiest cuts, and to protect older people and homeowners, as their voters. The result being to cut but get nowhere fast as many things that were ditched - like infrastructure spending - proved counterproductive longer term. Or starving councils of cash while limiting their tax raising abilities at a time when the number of elderly people needing it was set to rocket.
Meanwhile, things like the winter fuel allowance and triple lock remained sacrosanct even as the bill to the state goes up. While it feels to everyone that their community and services are decaying if you're outside an area that's attracting investment.
Anyway, it's killed the small state as an idea for a while - because it didn't work - which is not to say it couldn't work. But only if those doing it are braver and less Machiavellian and self-interested. The only way it can come back I think is someone suggesting that the government just shouldn't do some pretty significant things at all. Which probably only happens if technology reaches a point where that abandoning those things is fairly cost free to the public.
I don't think the small state is as unpopular as you think, probably 60% of people don't get benefit from the large state apart from the nhs. There crimes aren't solved, social care cost their relatives money if they saved any or have an asset etc.
Social housing is a prime example.....not saying its a bad idea....just since the 70's when it was allocated on a needs first basis most people don't see themselves ever getting to the top of the list.
To put some numbers on that, 54% of UK residents are net recipients from the state, while 46% contribute.
About 46% of non-retired people are net recipients. So it's pretty close - though much depends on the measurement of in-kind benefits and so on.
Could I have a source for that please?
The figure you need to be earning to be a lifetime net contributor is circa 40k I think so doesnt surprise me
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
They upweight the fact a cheap Chinese telly has gone from £350 to £250 due to dumping or loss leaders from Amazon on Black Friday, while ignoring the fact that most people's heating bill has doubled, and rents are going up by about 9% a year (Source: FT, earlier today, see https://www.ft.com/content/70a9eb59-1ef1-4469-af89-c47a9bdfa027 ).
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
Ask people and they will tell you inflation is 20% easily. But they will also tell you 50% of the UK population is immigrants and 25% of government spending is foreign aid. Perceptions do not always correspond to reality. In this case, though, we can look at wage deals that workers are willing to settle for, where real money is on the line, and these tend to be in line with headline inflation. So overall, it looks like inflation is about as measured, but if you're in the minority of workers who rent, you might feel it more than the majority who don't. And that makes sense when most of people's spending goes on groceries where inflation has cooled after 2022, large-value stuff where prices continue to fall, and the huge but ignored share that goes on government services, where recent pay deals haven't been inflationary at all.
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
They upweight the fact a cheap Chinese telly has gone from £350 to £250 due to dumping or loss leaders from Amazon on Black Friday, while ignoring the fact that most people's heating bill has doubled, and rents are going up by about 9% a year (Source: FT, earlier today, see https://www.ft.com/content/70a9eb59-1ef1-4469-af89-c47a9bdfa027 ).
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
Ask people and they will tell you inflation is 20% easily. But they will also tell you 50% of the UK population is immigrants and 25% of government spending is foreign aid. Perceptions do not always correspond to reality. In this case, though, we can look at wage deals that workers are willing to settle for, where real money is on the line, and these tend to be in line with headline inflation. So overall, it looks like inflation is about as measured, but if you're in the minority of workers who rent, you might feel it more than the majority who don't. And that makes sense when most of people's spending goes on groceries where inflation has cooled after 2022, large-value stuff where prices continue to fall, and the huge but ignored share that goes on government services, where recent pay deals haven't been inflationary at all.
Inflation is very personal, one persons inflation may be 10 percent and another's is 1%, national inflation is merely an average
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
They upweight the fact a cheap Chinese telly has gone from £350 to £250 due to dumping or loss leaders from Amazon on Black Friday, while ignoring the fact that most people's heating bill has doubled, and rents are going up by about 9% a year (Source: FT, earlier today, see https://www.ft.com/content/70a9eb59-1ef1-4469-af89-c47a9bdfa027 ).
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
Ask people and they will tell you inflation is 20% easily. But they will also tell you 50% of the UK population is immigrants and 25% of government spending is foreign aid. Perceptions do not always correspond to reality. In this case, though, we can look at wage deals that workers are willing to settle for, where real money is on the line, and these tend to be in line with headline inflation. So overall, it looks like inflation is about as measured, but if you're in the minority of workers who rent, you might feel it more than the majority who don't. And that makes sense when most of people's spending goes on groceries where inflation has cooled after 2022, large-value stuff where prices continue to fall, and the huge but ignored share that goes on government services, where recent pay deals haven't been inflationary at all.
Inflation is hugely different for renters vs homeowners vs mortgage payers as a % of monthly outgoings. Similarly if you're on a low income, grocery shopping can take 50% of your disposable income, whereas it's more like 5% if you're a top earner. People experience inflation differently, but what seems fairly certain is inflation on the basics - i.e. a roof over your head, food in your belly, and heat in winter has probs been about 25% over the last 3 years.
Inflation has hit the poorest hardest. I tend to track the prices of 'basics' like a bag of rice or pasta, or a jar of freeze dried coffee, or whatever. These things have rocketed, as have rents. This will have impacted the poorest in our society disproportionately.
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
They upweight the fact a cheap Chinese telly has gone from £350 to £250 due to dumping or loss leaders from Amazon on Black Friday, while ignoring the fact that most people's heating bill has doubled, and rents are going up by about 9% a year (Source: FT, earlier today, see https://www.ft.com/content/70a9eb59-1ef1-4469-af89-c47a9bdfa027 ).
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
Ask people and they will tell you inflation is 20% easily. But they will also tell you 50% of the UK population is immigrants and 25% of government spending is foreign aid. Perceptions do not always correspond to reality. In this case, though, we can look at wage deals that workers are willing to settle for, where real money is on the line, and these tend to be in line with headline inflation. So overall, it looks like inflation is about as measured, but if you're in the minority of workers who rent, you might feel it more than the majority who don't. And that makes sense when most of people's spending goes on groceries where inflation has cooled after 2022, large-value stuff where prices continue to fall, and the huge but ignored share that goes on government services, where recent pay deals haven't been inflationary at all.
Inflation is very personal, one persons inflation may be 10 percent and another's is 1%, national inflation is merely an average
Correct. And if you own (not rent) a modern well-insulated house, it is possible that your personal inflation rate has been going down at times in the last few years.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
They upweight the fact a cheap Chinese telly has gone from £350 to £250 due to dumping or loss leaders from Amazon on Black Friday, while ignoring the fact that most people's heating bill has doubled, and rents are going up by about 9% a year (Source: FT, earlier today, see https://www.ft.com/content/70a9eb59-1ef1-4469-af89-c47a9bdfa027 ).
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
Ask people and they will tell you inflation is 20% easily. But they will also tell you 50% of the UK population is immigrants and 25% of government spending is foreign aid. Perceptions do not always correspond to reality. In this case, though, we can look at wage deals that workers are willing to settle for, where real money is on the line, and these tend to be in line with headline inflation. So overall, it looks like inflation is about as measured, but if you're in the minority of workers who rent, you might feel it more than the majority who don't. And that makes sense when most of people's spending goes on groceries where inflation has cooled after 2022, large-value stuff where prices continue to fall, and the huge but ignored share that goes on government services, where recent pay deals haven't been inflationary at all.
Inflation is hugely different for renters vs homeowners vs mortgage payers as a % of monthly outgoings. Similarly if you're on a low income, grocery shopping can take 50% of your disposable income, whereas it's more like 5% if you're a top earner. People experience inflation differently, but what seems fairly certain is inflation on the basics - i.e. a roof over your head, food in your belly, and heat in winter has probs been about 25% over the last 3 years.
Inflation has hit the poorest hardest. I tend to track the prices of 'basics' like a bag of rice or pasta, or a jar of freeze dried coffee, or whatever. These things have rocketed, as have rents. This will have impacted the poorest in our society disproportionately.
It's hard to say for sure because higher-income groups spend more on the discretionary stuff where price dynamics were a lot faster in the last 24 months, whereas the groceries and energy shocks were huge in 2022 and cooled off afterwards, especially energy. And if we include housing costs based on mortgages, they pay more too. On the other hand, the higher-income people also pay a lot more tax, and in the CPI accounting, that means they are paying for a lot of government services that are relatively low-inflation, but of course, they don't get most of the benefits of those, so this is a bit spurious.
1) Defence 2) A free at point of use health service that is effective 3) Law and order ( covers police, judicial and border control) 4) Free education to 18 that is good education 5) A safety net for those that fall on hard times (though I think the safety net should be time limited except in the case of extreme disability)
In my view till we have all 5 working we shouldn't be funding other stuff
Social care for the elderly. Pensions for the retired. public sector housing. Roads. Water, sewage and other infrastructure. The foreign office. Our University system.
So many necessary public services without which we would not have a working, wealth creating society. I'm open to the idea the State tries to do too much and spreads itself too thin but your list is way too short.
Pensions for the retired and social care for those who cant pay is part of the safety net
Students can pay for their degrees, Water and sewage is already privatised we do need a I agree a stronger ofwat. The foreign office is largely a waste of space and I doubt any of us would notice if it was culled to about 5%. For example do we need an embassy in every country...we could probably manage with a consulate officer in mosts sharing an embassy with other countries. Roads just hypothecate road tax and fuel duty its more than enough to pay for those
Disappointed that you're already compromising and willing to fund the Foreign Office.
What about the Royal family?
I am not a royalist so don't really care, and the only reason to fund any foreign office is to have a consulate officer there is for citizens who have problems abroad. I regard it as part of the safety net.
I don't really know what the Foreign Office does or achieves, so I'd have to find out before agreeing to cut it by 95% - some of it might be important.
No on knows what the foreign office really does apart from the obvious helping out citizens abroad. They however employ 17000 to do it, given 260 or so countries thats 65 employees per country
Think of it like an insurance policy
It doesn’t matter. Until it does.
I am not asking them to cut the help part, do we really need expensive embassies however that are well staffed or could say us, norway, germany , france, etc just club together and have one building each wish 1 or 2 consulate officers and the rest of the costs split....would it really effect the help they give?
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
Fact check: Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
I rented the same place from 2008 to 2018....when I first started there the rent was 25% of my take home pay....by the time I left it was 50% of my take home pay
The mouldy dive I rented down the road from where I live now was £850 a month in 2012, I saw it on the market last month for £1650.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I agree, mainly I think because they include consumer electronics which do come down in price but few people buy a tv every year etc
They upweight the fact a cheap Chinese telly has gone from £350 to £250 due to dumping or loss leaders from Amazon on Black Friday, while ignoring the fact that most people's heating bill has doubled, and rents are going up by about 9% a year (Source: FT, earlier today, see https://www.ft.com/content/70a9eb59-1ef1-4469-af89-c47a9bdfa027 ).
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
Ask people and they will tell you inflation is 20% easily. But they will also tell you 50% of the UK population is immigrants and 25% of government spending is foreign aid. Perceptions do not always correspond to reality. In this case, though, we can look at wage deals that workers are willing to settle for, where real money is on the line, and these tend to be in line with headline inflation. So overall, it looks like inflation is about as measured, but if you're in the minority of workers who rent, you might feel it more than the majority who don't. And that makes sense when most of people's spending goes on groceries where inflation has cooled after 2022, large-value stuff where prices continue to fall, and the huge but ignored share that goes on government services, where recent pay deals haven't been inflationary at all.
Inflation is hugely different for renters vs homeowners vs mortgage payers as a % of monthly outgoings. Similarly if you're on a low income, grocery shopping can take 50% of your disposable income, whereas it's more like 5% if you're a top earner. People experience inflation differently, but what seems fairly certain is inflation on the basics - i.e. a roof over your head, food in your belly, and heat in winter has probs been about 25% over the last 3 years.
Inflation has hit the poorest hardest. I tend to track the prices of 'basics' like a bag of rice or pasta, or a jar of freeze dried coffee, or whatever. These things have rocketed, as have rents. This will have impacted the poorest in our society disproportionately.
It's hard to say for sure because higher-income groups spend more on the discretionary stuff where price dynamics were a lot faster in the last 24 months, whereas the groceries and energy shocks were huge in 2022 and cooled off afterwards, especially energy. And if we include housing costs based on mortgages, they pay more too. On the other hand, the higher-income people also pay a lot more tax, and in the CPI accounting, that means they are paying for a lot of government services that are relatively low-inflation, but of course, they don't get most of the benefits of those, so this is a bit spurious.
Government services are low inflation how do you work that out...a lot of the time the department seems to get an above inflation rise in funding yet do less than they did before....points at the nhs
Comments
In any event, you now seem to be suggesting the fines imposed should be spent on cleaning up the mess. Again, not what you originally said - you were suggesting that none of that should be done until your list was attended to.
If I was to have a government prioritise just one thing, then it would be to improve leadership in general, so that central government could delegate confident that lower rungs of leadership would be working effectively to make marginal gains, spread good practice and correct mistakes.
It's starker thinking about local councils- most of the money goes into social care. Often hugely expensive per individual, but serving a smallish number of people. Meanwhile, the sort of things that more people use (parks, libraries, community events, street care, bin collections) get stripped to the bone. The result looks like a bad deal for most council tax payers.
Suspect that something similar happens at national level. We don't see the benefits of being paid a pension, or of healthcare, because they are so massively loaded towards the end of life. Prisons are expensive, but (if they are working well) we don't notice them. And so on.
There seems to be a neat but nasty paradox here. By cutting the state functions that can reasonably be cut, we make the state appear to be a worse bargain. That's before thinking about the way that cutting preventative stuff often leads to a bigger bill in the acute sectors of health and justice a decade or so down the line.
What about repaying government debt? Kind of a waste of money, but might be tricky
Who is she, btw?
Good government isn't simply allocating a fixed percentage to every requirement, it's about saying some things are more important than others. You could argue, for example, that we should privatise the roads in order to raise money to create a much better free public healthcare system.
Or you could argue that once certain basic conditions are met by the state, it shouldn't be interfering in anything else.
Fringe opinions, for sure. But certainly not pointless gesture politics, nor applicable to the hard choices the state has to make now, in the face of limited resources and multiple competing demands.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-leak-27-billion-data-records-with-social-security-numbers/
Freddie Sayers
@freddiesayers
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21m
The Drudge Report, once considered the most powerful Right-wing website in America, is now not only anti-Trump but actively pro-Kamala Harris.
We could afford more. We pay less tax than most developed countries. And sensible investment will save money in the long run.
You started off with a hard list, and now accept there is a load of other stuff but reckon some of it could be done more efficiently.
In reality, you need to go through what you want to cut based on more than your vague impression with no real knowledge, and quantify the savings - I am sure there are quite a few out there. But your definitive list of what we should do, and nothing else, until it was to your satisfaction, was idiotic. And you're not even really standing by it.
If ... that's clear.
Of course. And I'd suggest that this is an inevitable feature of using the state-run tax-funded model to get stuff done. Indeed it would be very strange if this wasn't happening.
At all levels, government is destined to have to make hard choices, and destined to make the 'wrong' ones, at least in some folks minds.
As a Libertarian I instinctively question whether this is a desireable situation, and if certain responsibilities and decision-making should be extricated from the state. Maybe in time a smaller, less powerful, state that has fewer tough decisions to make would become popular, given that fewer people would be disappointed with the decisions it made.
Now you can agree or disagree with his list. But it's a damn sight improvement on posters who simply call for a smaller state then bugger off without any clue as to what they'd cut.
Things they don't like usually.
https://x.com/stella2020woof/status/1823807953905791146
I see Kris Maharaj has died in jail.
On of the most abysmal miscarriages of justice in the long list that shames the US criminal justice systems - in this case, Florida.
Briton dies before clearing name after 38 years in US jails for murders he denied
Body of Kris Maharaj, who died in Florida prison hospital despite judge finding him innocent, will be taken to UK by his wife for burial
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/13/final-wish-comes-true-for-british-trinidadian-kris-maharaj-jailed-for-38-years-in-us-for-murders-he-denied
Are Labour setting up a 1970s style inflationary spiral for 2026?
But getting a small number of things within the government's control really right. Then filtering down to the rest?
It's almost the New Labour pledge card
I don't know if that's *the*'reason why Drudge has repositioned, but it has to be a candidate, surely.
Most have seen a 15% or more pay cut in the last couple of years due to inflation.
...the new offer is for a 5% backdated pay rise for 2022/23, a 4.75% rise for 23/24, and 4.5% increase for 24/25...
Megyn Kelly: Trump’s ‘rambling’ is boring and probably ‘age-related’
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4827740-megyn-kelly-donald-trump-elon-musk-interview-rambling-age/
The News Agents
@TheNewsAgents
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6h
"[Truss] is an unusual person... She doesn't read the room."
https://x.com/TheNewsAgents/status/1823741055285752221
There's a whole pile of expensive stuff where the taxpayer is the payer of last resort. Health and social care are the obvious examples, financial safety nets for those who really aren't in a state to work is another. I don't see who else would be willing (or able) to fund those, and I'm pretty sure we're at the limits of how much they can be squeezed. And just cutting them would have consequences for society that we wouldn't particularly want. (How much crime and anti-social behaviour globally is driven by the destitute?)
We could shrink the state to just to those things and nothing else. But for most of us, that would mean paying in and getting very little to nothing out.
...The bar to Maharaj’s release was a law that meant evidence of innocence was not enough to free him – and last year the US federal supreme court declined to review it...
Thank goodness the professional management are so cheap. Otherwise it might (might!) seem like quite a waste of time and money.
It makes me wonder if this is just rife through the whole system, outside of my own little bubble.
But it's not the 1970s redux just yet.
https://x.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1823844087092347076
It may be nasty.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/latest
...
That's what you mean?
Trump says the FBI is looking into the hack on his campaign and again says “it looks like it’s Iran.”
I asked him if the FBI told him it was Iran.
“I don’t want to say exactly. But it was Iran.”
https://x.com/KateSullivanDC/status/1823831154941944175
If we get robbed the police won't do anything
If we want a doctors appointment we need to wait for 2 to 3 weeks (in my case I moved 2 years, am still trying to register with my local gp for example)
my bin gets collected every 3 weeks
Last time I got laid off, trying to sign on was a nightmare and only did it after being out of work a month and I ended up with money but the housing benefit + uc didnt even cover my rent and no wasnt in a particually expensive place just wasnt a mould ridden shit hole and couldn't have moved as how do you raise the deposit for the new place....on top of which I got sanctioned and lost my benefits for not looking for work just after they signed off on my expenses for attending 7 interviews in the last 2 weeks...why because I didn't use their web search to look for work....because all the jobs were min wage shop work. This still in my jsa period as only been off a work. My caseworked even said its not right appeal you will win but it will take several months.
Yeah I feel I get very little bank for the 15k tax and ni I pay and don't believe the state has my back if I fall on hard times
The state won't help you, if you can help yourself. Which in my view makes it a bit pointless contributing to both your own hard times fund, and the one the state forces you to pay into.
I've paid hundreds of grand in tax over the course of my lifetime but I'm not entitled to tuppence if I become unemployed.
Now adjust that for inflation. Not the massaged government figures, but the estimates from private trackers that suggested we peaked between 16 and 24%.
A 6% pay rise is a 10% pay cut in a year when 16% inflation happens.
Look at the prices in the shops, for a can of freeze dried coffee, or a pint in the pub, the cost of renting a flat, and so on if you don't believe that the true rate of inflation in the last few years has been double the headline rate.
Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
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47m
Spot on by @robertshrimsley
. One of the first obligations of a democracy is to defend itself from anti-democratic methods: the rule of the fist & the firebomb.
https://x.com/redhistorian/status/1823837423136039126
"You have a republic ma'am. If you can keep it."
An obscure website accused of fuelling a wave of riots in the UK with an inaccurate story is partly based in Pakistan.
Here, ITV News Global Security Editor @RohitKachrooITV tracks down Farhan Asif to ask him about his role in Channel3Now, which was shut down hours later.
So they just dumped the work on existing staff who already had more work than they could handle.
I remember two solid weeks of having literally two keyboards in front of me just pressing the F-key for 'reject' as fast as I could so they'd pass the probation period on the ludicrous contract.
This is just repeated over and over. I'm sure somewhere, somehow, someone is making good bank from it.
But I tend to look at shorter term price rises on a few things to get a handle on how inflation is way higher than the government statistics.
Eg. Bag of haribo - a quid in tescos, since time immemorial. Until 2021. Then it rose by 10p. Then to 25p. Then to £1.35. 35% inflation in 3 years.
Stuartinromford's government approved statistics suggest inflation was 5.4% (total growth) minus - 2.4% (govt estimated real growth). or 3%.
Anyone who believes inflation over the last year was 3%, or was similar in the years preceding it, I have a bridge to sell you. My point stands. Even getting a 6% pay rise annually over the last 3 years will feel like a pay cut for most people, when the cost of essentials like food has risen substantially, the cost of going out, holidays, hotels, has risen substantially, and the cost of renting or a mortgage has risen ridiculously (thanks to interest rates).
Govt official inflation rates do not reflect the real life experiences of anyone I know. They are soviet tractor stats.
I used to rent somewhere that was about 12-13% of my take home pay. Never appreciated it at the time.
A 5.4% pay rise when your rent went up by 9% this year is not the slam dunk Stuartinromford seems to think it is.
Add in the fact that mostly came from people switching jobs to higher salaries, rather than those in existing jobs asked to take a lower pay rise or leave - and again my point stands. Most people in the private sector feel substantially poorer over the past three years.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2215070/Are-contributor-burden-nations-finances--Squeezed-middle-increasingly-dependent-state.html
Inflation has hit the poorest hardest. I tend to track the prices of 'basics' like a bag of rice or pasta, or a jar of freeze dried coffee, or whatever. These things have rocketed, as have rents. This will have impacted the poorest in our society disproportionately.
Edit: Good article on 'cheapflation' (i.e. the price of basic staples rising disproportionately) by the FT here - https://www.ft.com/content/4e4cda99-0016-4d09-843c-5d872f1bf9e2
It doesn’t matter. Until it does.
Like there was truflation which was backed by a bunch of goldbug types who thought the US CPI was fake but they're now showing the inflation rate at 1.5%
https://truflation.com/dashboard?feed=us-inflation-rate