Just had some cheeky bets on Verstappen at 23 and Hamilton 25 to win today's Grand Prix.
You never know, safety cars, etc.
I thought the safety car had crashed in practice?
It did.
There's a story from the early 1980s when Prof Watkins (the medical officer at the time) complained that there wasn't a medical car available, and therefore the session could not be run. So Bernie and others looked for a fast car in the parking lot, broke into it, and that was the medical car for the session.
(Or summit like that.)
Thank goodness times have changed. The 'medical facilities' at some circuits in the seventies were muddy tents.
The big change was that Bernie gave “Prof” Sid the power to stop any session at any time, for medical reasons such as unavailability of an air ambulance or facilities at the circuit that weren’t up to scratch. And he did, several times.
Circuits now have dozens of doctors placed amongst the marshals, a medical centre that looks like an intensive care ward, and at least two air ambulances on standby.
All thanks to Jackie Stewart and other drivers convincing Bernie that people didn’t want to watch drivers die on live TV, and that continuing to see two or three funerals every year wasn’t going to make F1 popular with fans.
I gather, from someone in a position to know, that Prof Watkins was not a man to be trifled with!
His book, “Life at the Limit”, is a very good read about how motor racing transitioned from the old school of mad rich men risking their lives every weekend, towards today’s professional motorsport focussed on safety of drivers, marshals, and spectators.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
It's not just the ultra wealthy and successful that Reeves and Starmer will hammer
'Ordinary' modestly successful workers and pensioners maybe those with incomes £50,000 to £100,000 who may be at the bottom end as regards participation on here but overall have done ok, will have their hard worked income and wealth taken by Labour to pay for massive public sector pay rises, associated public sector pension increases and the general waste of money that is associated with Labour.
You may recall the Health and Social Care levy which caused some lively discussions here. It's coming back! Rachel's Redistribution Revenue will tax all income by 2% minimum, you heard it here first.
I suggest that everyone interested in tax policy, or even just interested in what might be hit by tax rises, should listen to this week's IFS podcast
Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social is the guest expert.
It makes the point that the last conservative government was very successful in raising taxes on rich individuals and business.
To such an extent that whilst we have the highest overall tax collected since the 1950s as a percentage of GDP and that is going to increase, for average earners the percentage of direct tax (income tax and NIC) paid on their earnings is the lowest.
If we were to raise tax inline with other high taxing european countries we would be taxing the middle class more rather than the rich.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
You're completely missing the point of course. If you want to maximise tax collection you get people to pay more. Tyre hits the road. The sweet point is when the numbers actually leaving start to outweigh the extra revenue raised through higher taxes. We're nowhere near that point, not least because the current government hasn't in fact raised taxes yet
Edit no reason at all to hate these people as long they keep paying. I suggest a better focus is making the country attractive place to be, by for example providing working public services.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The UK tax take is lower than that in Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Portugal, Hungary, Czechia, and New Zealand. It’s about the same as Canada and Japan. These other countries are not obviously collapsing because of the flight of high earners. I am unconvinced that UK taxes are so horrendous that they doom our country.
The UK tax take is higher than Switzerland, Singapore, UAE, USA, Australia, Saudi Arabia, all countries going out of their way to attract high earners from around the globe to relocate themselves and their businesses.
Most of those countries have had lower tax takes than us for decades and yet disaster did not ensue. They’ve had much lower tax takes than France, Germany, etc. and disaster did not ensue. As OldKingCole wisely noted, we’ve heard all this many times before. We’ve heard this when the UK was looking at big tax increases. Today, we’re talking about the possibility of mild tax increases and the cries of wolf just aren’t very convincing.
Has Lord’s even been this empty for a day of Test cricket in the last couple of decades?
£125 tickets for Sri Lanka will do that. They completely mispriced the test match, treating it like a match against India, SA, Australia or NZ who always attract huge crowds.
Wow that’s silly. Sell them at £50, and give out a few thousand to local schools if there’s not enough demand. An empty Lord’s is a terrible advert for the sport.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
I thought that there were statistics showing that a lot of these people had already left, that Britain had record high outflows even before the election.
Now, that's obviously an issue, but the reasons for it are a bit more complicated than, "they're running away from labour tax increases."
The challenge for Labour is doubtless a stiff one. They need to create a sense of shared endeavour. There needs to be opportunity. They need to make the country work, so that those who pay a lot of tax don't think it's all being wasted.
I don't get the sense that all of these people would have stuck around, or would stick around, if only their taxes were cut. There's a lot more going on than that, even if it might prove to be a last straw for many.
Ok, my comment is coming from a place of talking to these people, talking to their lawyers and talking to the estate agents who are working every weekend for once showing these people the £6m plus properties, introducing them to the jet charter companies to get them to London in 40 mins if they need to be there.
It’s not me taking a “feeling” and using it to make a political point. This is happening and they are saying - and the guy I’m meeting tomorrow and spoke to on Friday - they are leaving because they believe they are about to be buggered by Labour and squeezed more than they are happy to be anymore.
I honestly thought it wouldn’t materialise but my friends and acquaintances are very surprised at the numbers who are looking at moving.
So, it’s not about anything Labour has done or said they’ll do, it’s about people’s fears of what Labour might do? Presumably when the Telegraph scaremongering proves to be untrue, they’ll all decide to stay.
I would be surprised if any of them read the telegraph. Funnily enough these sorts of people analyse loads of information sources and make decisions accordingly, not just packing the house up because a grumpy front page on the telegraph.
Then why are they falling for nutty talk about Labour massively squeezing higher earners that is not going to happen?
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
Seriously, Casino, you should think about doing exactly that. Is your current lifestyle worth the additional stress?
Not really. My wife will sacrifice anything for the children's education, though.
Given my high cholesterol and blood pressure though, and others might have noticed my anger management challenges over the last 3-4 years, she's coming round to the idea I might need a change.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
You're completely missing the point of course. If you want to maximise tax collection you get people to pay more. Tyre hits the road. The sweet point is when the numbers actually leaving start to outweigh the extra revenue raised through higher taxes. We're nowhere near that point, not least because the current government hasn't in fact raised taxes yet
That ignores the other “sweet spot”. The point where someone living in the UK creates a business, maybe a new tech entity and think - “ do the government not like me and is there a risk they will milk me dry when I’ve taken all these risks and worked my arse off?”
That person, deciding that the risk from taxes now and the future is too great, takes their business elsewhere with the resulting revenues, spin off revenues and tax take.
So it might just be one person but they will do more damage than thousands of others so it’s not just a people numbers game, it’s how attractive the country is to people who want to make things and make money.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
What a load of nonsense, my payslip every month that shows thousands paid in PAYE+NI must just be imaginary then? It's people like you that drive people like me out of the country, Labour are creating a hostile environment for high achievers and people like you are cheering it on and even when faced with the consequences you continue to do so. As I said last night, the final protest that I have left against this is to leave the country, both my wife and I are additional tax rate payers and I think the only tax avoidance I've ever bothered with is having an ISA and using AVCs to avoid the 100k cliff edge for a few years when I was on the cusp of it despite years of advice from a few colleagues to use tax minimisation schemes throughout my career.
There is no level of tax I could pay that would satisfy these people.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
I thought that there were statistics showing that a lot of these people had already left, that Britain had record high outflows even before the election.
Now, that's obviously an issue, but the reasons for it are a bit more complicated than, "they're running away from labour tax increases."
The challenge for Labour is doubtless a stiff one. They need to create a sense of shared endeavour. There needs to be opportunity. They need to make the country work, so that those who pay a lot of tax don't think it's all being wasted.
I don't get the sense that all of these people would have stuck around, or would stick around, if only their taxes were cut. There's a lot more going on than that, even if it might prove to be a last straw for many.
Ok, my comment is coming from a place of talking to these people, talking to their lawyers and talking to the estate agents who are working every weekend for once showing these people the £6m plus properties, introducing them to the jet charter companies to get them to London in 40 mins if they need to be there.
It’s not me taking a “feeling” and using it to make a political point. This is happening and they are saying - and the guy I’m meeting tomorrow and spoke to on Friday - they are leaving because they believe they are about to be buggered by Labour and squeezed more than they are happy to be anymore.
I honestly thought it wouldn’t materialise but my friends and acquaintances are very surprised at the numbers who are looking at moving.
So, it’s not about anything Labour has done or said they’ll do, it’s about people’s fears of what Labour might do? Presumably when the Telegraph scaremongering proves to be untrue, they’ll all decide to stay.
I guess in that sense the Telegraph is playing a helpful role for Labour in terms of expectations management?
People seem surprised that the new Labour government isn't all that popular, but they won the election with a record low share of the vote for the party of the PM, and given how much more unpopular the Tories are, it's reasonable to think that a higher proportion than normal of those votes were primarily anti-Tory votes. In such circumstances we should expect a new government to be greeted warily, at best, by the country.
But, they are the government, and they have the chance to prove themselves to the people. It will be interesting to see which bits of the budget Reeves chooses to spend most time talking about, and which she'd rather not draw too much attention to.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
If you took a "slightly easier" job, some-one else would step in to your current job and replenish the Treasury coffers.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
If you took a "slightly easier" job, some-one else would step in to your current job and replenish the Treasury coffers.
With supporters rolling out economic logic like that, it's no wonder they're ploughing on.
Has Lord’s even been this empty for a day of Test cricket in the last couple of decades?
£125 tickets for Sri Lanka will do that. They completely mispriced the test match, treating it like a match against India, SA, Australia or NZ who always attract huge crowds.
Wow that’s silly. Sell them at £50, and give out a few thousand to local schools if there’s not enough demand. An empty Lord’s is a terrible advert for the sport.
Which is what they did a couple of years ago with The Hundred. Not sure if they did it this year; didn't watch the games or study the crowds.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
You're completely missing the point of course. If you want to maximise tax collection you get people to pay more. Tyre hits the road. The sweet point is when the numbers actually leaving start to outweigh the extra revenue raised through higher taxes. We're nowhere near that point, not least because the current government hasn't in fact raised taxes yet
That ignores the other “sweet spot”. The point where someone living in the UK creates a business, maybe a new tech entity and think - “ do the government not like me and is there a risk they will milk me dry when I’ve taken all these risks and worked my arse off?”
That person, deciding that the risk from taxes now and the future is too great, takes their business elsewhere with the resulting revenues, spin off revenues and tax take.
So it might just be one person but they will do more damage than thousands of others so it’s not just a people numbers game, it’s how attractive the country is to people who want to make things and make money.
Yes that was my other point in my edited post. Make the country an attractive place to invest and that will make their taxes worthwhile. How about rejoining the EU for much better market access?
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
Seriously, Casino, you should think about doing exactly that. Is your current lifestyle worth the additional stress?
Not really. My wife will sacrifice anything for the children's education, though.
Given my high cholesterol and blood pressure though, and others might have noticed my anger management challenges over the last 3-4 years, she's coming round to the idea I might need a change.
I’m the last person to give parenting advice but isn’t it generally accepted that spending more quality time with your kids is one of the best things you can do for them? Wouldn’t being able to do that make up for any possible deficiencies in their education?
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
It's not just the ultra wealthy and successful that Reeves and Starmer will hammer
'Ordinary' modestly successful workers and pensioners maybe those with incomes £50,000 to £100,000 who may be at the bottom end as regards participation on here but overall have done ok, will have their hard worked income and wealth taken by Labour to pay for massive public sector pay rises, associated public sector pension increases and the general waste of money that is associated with Labour.
You may recall the Health and Social Care levy which caused some lively discussions here. It's coming back! Rachel's Redistribution Revenue will tax all income by 2% minimum, you heard it here first.
I suggest that everyone interested in tax policy, or even just interested in what might be hit by tax rises, should listen to this week's IFS podcast
Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social is the guest expert.
It makes the point that the last conservative government was very successful in raising taxes on rich individuals and business.
To such an extent that whilst we have the highest overall tax collected since the 1950s as a percentage of GDP and that is going to increase, for average earners the percentage of direct tax (income tax and NIC) paid on their earnings is the lowest.
If we were to raise tax inline with other high taxing european countries we would be taxing the middle class more rather than the rich.
Yes, someone pointed this out before the election, and it's a very interesting fact. Britain apparently has the most progressive tax policies in the world, but no-one wants to talk about it.
The ECB are going to be seriously worried by how empty Lord's is today. Legacy of too many three day finishes?
Cricket has both diluted and eliteified the cricket brand. Diluted it by too much cricket, too many competitions, rendering the County Championship almost meaningless, too many tests, of which too many are between very unequal teams, the season too long, going into autumnal weather and light.
Eliteified it by flogging rights away from free TV so that a mass audience is lost.
They should have done the precise opposite: kept the mass audience and kept the top of the game elite and a bit rare.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
You're completely missing the point of course. If you want to maximise tax collection you get people to pay more. Tyre hits the road. The sweet point is when the numbers actually leaving start to outweigh the extra revenue raised through higher taxes. We're nowhere near that point, not least because the current government hasn't in fact raised taxes yet
That ignores the other “sweet spot”. The point where someone living in the UK creates a business, maybe a new tech entity and think - “ do the government not like me and is there a risk they will milk me dry when I’ve taken all these risks and worked my arse off?”
That person, deciding that the risk from taxes now and the future is too great, takes their business elsewhere with the resulting revenues, spin off revenues and tax take.
So it might just be one person but they will do more damage than thousands of others so it’s not just a people numbers game, it’s how attractive the country is to people who want to make things and make money.
This is the big fear, right now with the current regulatory and tax environment the UK is the default location for tech and finance startup. European countries are usually an afterthought and in many cases those European based companies open UK branches to get the talent and over time those companies become UK dominated.
Changing those factors will irreparably damage the economy, thousands of high skilled and high yield jobs simply won't be created here when those founders decide that their startup would make more sense in Ireland or more recently Italy which has introduced a whole raft of measures to attract startup founders and remote workers.
I'm super excited about being able to buy a place in Central London for less, assuming @boulay and @MaxPB are correct. All those people fleeing to low tax environments will hopefully sell their Regent's Park homes.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Liz Truss tried, but the forces of Sunak and the Treasury soon had her out on her ear.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
I thought that there were statistics showing that a lot of these people had already left, that Britain had record high outflows even before the election.
Now, that's obviously an issue, but the reasons for it are a bit more complicated than, "they're running away from labour tax increases."
The challenge for Labour is doubtless a stiff one. They need to create a sense of shared endeavour. There needs to be opportunity. They need to make the country work, so that those who pay a lot of tax don't think it's all being wasted.
I don't get the sense that all of these people would have stuck around, or would stick around, if only their taxes were cut. There's a lot more going on than that, even if it might prove to be a last straw for many.
Ok, my comment is coming from a place of talking to these people, talking to their lawyers and talking to the estate agents who are working every weekend for once showing these people the £6m plus properties, introducing them to the jet charter companies to get them to London in 40 mins if they need to be there.
It’s not me taking a “feeling” and using it to make a political point. This is happening and they are saying - and the guy I’m meeting tomorrow and spoke to on Friday - they are leaving because they believe they are about to be buggered by Labour and squeezed more than they are happy to be anymore.
I honestly thought it wouldn’t materialise but my friends and acquaintances are very surprised at the numbers who are looking at moving.
So, it’s not about anything Labour has done or said they’ll do, it’s about people’s fears of what Labour might do? Presumably when the Telegraph scaremongering proves to be untrue, they’ll all decide to stay.
I think there's a little more to it than that. VAT on school fees, for a small but significant portion of the upper middle class, will have a one off effect, for instance. It might seem absurd to some of us, but for a few other, it's highly emotive, even beyond the not all but to their pockets.
It will have an effect, but it's hardly going to be the difference between success and failure for the economy.
I'm super excited about being able to buy a place in Central London for less, assuming @boulay and @MaxPB are correct. All those people fleeing to low tax environments will hopefully sell their Regent's Park homes.
Don’t worry, there are still a whole load of rich Russians, Iranians, Africans etc who need a bolthole from their own government, and will happily buy property in a country with property rights and the rule of law.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Liz Truss tried, but the forces of Sunak and the Treasury soon had her out on her ear.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
No she didn't. She chose to try and eliminate the additional rate, I remember thinking at that time it was the wrong priority. The 45p rate has never been an issue, it's the £100k earnings cap that really causes issues and she chose to do nothing about it but have a symbolic removal of the additional rate instead.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Liz Truss tried, but the forces of Sunak and the Treasury soon had her out on her ear.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
Most of those jobs are just a dismal charade of trying to guess the value of things based on other people's fear and greed. They can be replaced.
Starmer's not doing much of anything but if he's getting right wing fuckpieces to leave the country, then that's something,
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
I'm super excited about being able to buy a place in Central London for less, assuming @boulay and @MaxPB are correct. All those people fleeing to low tax environments will hopefully sell their Regent's Park homes.
During last night's convo, wasn't that a point that was made? Abroad is excellent for providing more, nicer, house for less money.
Which leaves me with some questions that I really don't have answers to, but I have strong suspicions.
How much of our collective sense of "not enough money" is down to the cost of accommodation, rather than taxes?
How much of the money released by tax cuts since the 1980s has just dropped through to the bucket labelled "house price inflation"? (I'm imagining something like that model of the economy made of clear plastic pipes and coloured water. Science Museum or a fever dream?)
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Liz Truss tried, but the forces of Sunak and the Treasury soon had her out on her ear.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
Most of those jobs are just a dismal charade of trying to guess the value of things based on other people's fear and greed. They can be replaced.
Starmer's not doing much of anything but if he's getting right wing fuckpieces to leave the country, then that's something,
"Starmer's not doing much of anything ". Largely, I suspect because Parliament isn't sitting.Normally, when a new Parliament is elected it gets straight down to work; this one had about a week of looking at each other, then went off on holiday. Something else for which Sunak and the Conservatives are responsible for.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Liz Truss tried, but the forces of Sunak and the Treasury soon had her out on her ear.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
Most of those jobs are just a dismal charade of trying to guess the value of things based on other people's fear and greed. They can be replaced.
Starmer's not doing much of anything but if he's getting right wing fuckpieces to leave the country, then that's something,
Ah yes. Hospital consultants are all rights with fuckpieces.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
And with remote working now available to basically anyone suddenly people are much more mobile. Were I to go both my wife and I would keep our current jobs and we'd just shift to overseas payroll. I'd need to come to the London office for 2 working days per month and my wife's terms are 10 working days per quarter.
Those are very modest numbers, though, probably the lowest hanging fruit and need to be weighed against the increased demand for crossing the Channel post Rwanda.
It's interesting there are no howls of outrage about them being far-right nazis and fascists when Labour do it, though. So many in the civil service and third sector are willing to give them a pass, rather than do a go-slow or launch lawfare in a way the Conservatives got every time.
Because they’re deporting people whose claims have failed?
This was always the problem with the Rwanda policy: it didn’t differentiate between genuine and bogus claimants. It was a one way ticket, completely offensive to most people’s senses of natural justice (when they actually knew how it worked - polling showed most thought it was just offshore processing).
Assessing claims and deporting those whose claims fail? Fine
Taking people temporarily to an offshore site to process? Also fine, if that’s really cost effective and not just about trying to look tough i Denying people their rights under the refugee convention, regardless of the merits of their claim? Decidedly not fine.
As I have said many times here, starting years ago when the idea was roundly mocked by all and sundry, Britain should have a worldwide network of asylum processing centres, with *no* asylum processing in the UK. This would be far better for genuine asylum seekers, because the centres would be closer to their countries of origin, and of zero interest to fraudulent asylum seekers (at least those without an extremely compelling fake case) because they wouldn't be able to await the verdict in the UK. If Labour implement this I would support them.
What is the incentive for third countries to host these centres, and won't they be surveilled by the secret police of adjacent bad countries?
Well, let's start with the obvious: there are plenty of (developed) countries that do offshore processing of asylum claims, so there is nothing particularly outrageous about the UK doing it too.
And it would be particularly advantageous to us, because there is the issue in the UK where asylum seekers disappear into the informal labour market, never to be seen or heard of again.
With that said, it might simply be easier to - you know - simply fund the asylum and immigration process properly. It takes years for decisions to be reached in the UK, against weeks and months in much of the rest of Europe. That - combined with a large informal labour market - makes us an attractive destination for those whose claims are ... less obvious.
Not to mention the asylum approval rate - waaaaay higher in the UK than in continental Europe.
However, the apeal of the offshore system is that it finally and irrevocably solves the issue. It's a judgement of Solomon policy.
Right. But my impression is Luckyguy is talking about let's say oppressed people in Congo popping over the border to the UK asylum centre in Angola, whereas offshore processing usually means catching people in your own first world country (or the med) and shipping them to Albania or Rwanda
People would be shipped (flown) there - that's what would happen with irregular arrivals. Straight to the overseas processing centre nearest their country of origin. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. No claims heard in the UK, no route into the asylum system via the UK (unless you want a free lift to Borioboola).
So one question that arises from this thread is what happens to the Lib Dem commitment to PR?
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
I thought that there were statistics showing that a lot of these people had already left, that Britain had record high outflows even before the election.
Now, that's obviously an issue, but the reasons for it are a bit more complicated than, "they're running away from labour tax increases."
The challenge for Labour is doubtless a stiff one. They need to create a sense of shared endeavour. There needs to be opportunity. They need to make the country work, so that those who pay a lot of tax don't think it's all being wasted.
I don't get the sense that all of these people would have stuck around, or would stick around, if only their taxes were cut. There's a lot more going on than that, even if it might prove to be a last straw for many.
Ok, my comment is coming from a place of talking to these people, talking to their lawyers and talking to the estate agents who are working every weekend for once showing these people the £6m plus properties, introducing them to the jet charter companies to get them to London in 40 mins if they need to be there.
It’s not me taking a “feeling” and using it to make a political point. This is happening and they are saying - and the guy I’m meeting tomorrow and spoke to on Friday - they are leaving because they believe they are about to be buggered by Labour and squeezed more than they are happy to be anymore.
I honestly thought it wouldn’t materialise but my friends and acquaintances are very surprised at the numbers who are looking at moving.
From the ones I’ve spoken to (private banking) it’s a combination of uncertainty and an ingrained belief that anything over 50% tax is unfair. Quite a few are already paying more than that on some income.
The question is, how mobile people are, and the rate at which they will leave/set up expensive arrangements to reduce their tax bills.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow — with his sullen set eyes on your own, And grumbles, “This isn’t fair dealing”, my son, leave the Saxon alone.
Even if Labour raise taxes, they could sweeten it a little by ensuring no one pays over 50% in effective tax on their earnings. That would involve some fiddly reforms, but that's the kind of thing the Treasury/HMRC should be capable of.
By "effective", I would include student loans and universal credit taper rates. The "working taxes guarantee".
All the signalling is that they are more likely to go for cuts to universal benefits rather than significant tax rises on earnings. Maybe something on CGT, but nothing radical. Perhaps some additional council tax bands and income tax NICs consolidation over the long term. It will be thoroughly meh, in line with the vibe.
As I have it the Labour three "no tax increase" commitments were:
No increase in Income Tax, NI, or VAT. We also had no CGT on main dwellings from Sir Keir during the campaign.
Plus we have the various tax rises already written in for after the Election by the Sunak Government.
I think we can expect a long-term but extensive change to Council Tax, various things around tightening up on tax breaks on wealth - lower ISA limit, possibly some things around pensions, lifetime gifts, tax avoidance / 'management' schemes, and other bits and pieces. And I agree with some CGT looks likely for an increase.
And plenty of dealing with messes such as the 100k-125k 66% rate, and other tidy-ups that could pull future income forward (that one Gordon Brown style) to front load padding the black holes.
But I'm not seeing a huge tax hike likely - even £25bn per annum is barely 1% of national income extra.
Good read, thanks for sharing. Bewilders me that Blair thinks he was at his best late on - I think most people would agree his early period was more successful than latterly.
I'm super excited about being able to buy a place in Central London for less, assuming @boulay and @MaxPB are correct. All those people fleeing to low tax environments will hopefully sell their Regent's Park homes.
Don’t worry, there are still a whole load of rich Russians, Iranians, Africans etc who need a bolthole from their own government, and will happily buy property in a country with property rights and the rule of law.
Yes, but prices are set at the margin. There are normally only about half a dozen properties a year that fit my profile, and if that becomes 18 or 20, that's a massive increase in supply.
Voting rights for those citizens would certainly be a good thing.
Mitch McConnell says he worries that Democrats, if they win this election, will nuke the filibuster and make DC and Puerto Rico states, then set their sights on the Supreme Court. https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1829682908782854168
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
Also, there's a difference between people going and their jobs going.
Most of us are eminently replaceable.
That's not what happens now, the job goes with the person. At my company two people have already moved, one to Greece and the other one to Majorca, they just need to come to the office for two working days a month usually the Thursday and a Friday at the end of the month.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Liz Truss tried, but the forces of Sunak and the Treasury soon had her out on her ear.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
No she didn't. She chose to try and eliminate the additional rate, I remember thinking at that time it was the wrong priority. The 45p rate has never been an issue, it's the £100k earnings cap that really causes issues and she chose to do nothing about it but have a symbolic removal of the additional rate instead.
Indeed, the problem is the cliff edges.
Any serious reform should eliminate all cliff edges - UC, £50k and £100k.
If that means putting up the 45p rate by a penny or two but then eliminating the cliff edges with that tax rise, then it would be a very sensible reform.
60% to 80% real tax rates are far more damaging than whether a tax rate is 42% or 45% or 47% or 48%
I'm super excited about being able to buy a place in Central London for less, assuming @boulay and @MaxPB are correct. All those people fleeing to low tax environments will hopefully sell their Regent's Park homes.
During last night's convo, wasn't that a point that was made? Abroad is excellent for providing more, nicer, house for less money.
Which leaves me with some questions that I really don't have answers to, but I have strong suspicions.
How much of our collective sense of "not enough money" is down to the cost of accommodation, rather than taxes?
How much of the money released by tax cuts since the 1980s has just dropped through to the bucket labelled "house price inflation"? (I'm imagining something like that model of the economy made of clear plastic pipes and coloured water. Science Museum or a fever dream?)
I'm not sure house prices are a big deterrent to very high net worth individuals. The UK saw constant inflows of HNWIs until Brexit when there was an exodus. The EU generally attracts HNWIs
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
Seriously, Casino, you should think about doing exactly that. Is your current lifestyle worth the additional stress?
Not really. My wife will sacrifice anything for the children's education, though.
Given my high cholesterol and blood pressure though, and others might have noticed my anger management challenges over the last 3-4 years, she's coming round to the idea I might need a change.
I have a lot of respect for you for writing that post.
So one question that arises from this thread is what happens to the Lib Dem commitment to PR?
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
The question is moot until FPTP fails to deliver a majority for one party or another.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
I would never consider leaving England under any circumstances short of civil war. But from a purely monetary point of view it would certainly be tempting. Currently I pay 49% of my turnover in tax which I think is a ridiculous state of affairs.
More likely, as Labour destroy our energy independence and we move to more and more imports, I will probably move back to working overseas permanently on rotation. Not something I want to do but needs must. It improves both my job prospects and my tax situation. I will still be providing the UK with oil and gas - I will just be doing it from the Middle East or South America.
Voting rights for those citizens would certainly be a good thing.
Mitch McConnell says he worries that Democrats, if they win this election, will nuke the filibuster and make DC and Puerto Rico states, then set their sights on the Supreme Court. https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1829682908782854168
Good; they should do that.
Quite ridiculous that they're not states. Make the capitol territory the uninhabited land in DC spanning Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capitol building etc and not where more Americans live in than Wyoming or Vermont.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
You're completely missing the point of course. If you want to maximise tax collection you get people to pay more. Tyre hits the road. The sweet point is when the numbers actually leaving start to outweigh the extra revenue raised through higher taxes. We're nowhere near that point, not least because the current government hasn't in fact raised taxes yet
That ignores the other “sweet spot”. The point where someone living in the UK creates a business, maybe a new tech entity and think - “ do the government not like me and is there a risk they will milk me dry when I’ve taken all these risks and worked my arse off?”
That person, deciding that the risk from taxes now and the future is too great, takes their business elsewhere with the resulting revenues, spin off revenues and tax take.
So it might just be one person but they will do more damage than thousands of others so it’s not just a people numbers game, it’s how attractive the country is to people who want to make things and make money.
Well, entrepreneurs aren’t the same as high earners. Most high earners aren’t entrepreneurs. Most entrepreneurs aren’t earning over £100k. We can make the country attractive to entrepreneurs in lots of ways. I’ve just published (preprinted) work where we talked to entrepreneurs in digital health. None of them said what they wanted was lower taxes. What they wanted was more state support for their activities and regulatory alignment with other parts of the world (e.g. EU).
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
What a load of nonsense, my payslip every month that shows thousands paid in PAYE+NI must just be imaginary then? It's people like you that drive people like me out of the country, Labour are creating a hostile environment for high achievers and people like you are cheering it on and even when faced with the consequences you continue to do so. As I said last night, the final protest that I have left against this is to leave the country, both my wife and I are additional tax rate payers and I think the only tax avoidance I've ever bothered with is having an ISA and using AVCs to avoid the 100k cliff edge for a few years when I was on the cusp of it despite years of advice from a few colleagues to use tax minimisation schemes throughout my career.
There is no level of tax I could pay that would satisfy these people.
There is nothing these people could say to rid you of your persecution complex.
One thing I have noticed in recent weeks is that quite a lot of leading Conservative politicians - some now former Conservatives, like Rory Stewart - go on about liberal and democratic values, and the need to stand up for them.
Their problem is that under recent leaders the Conservatives have been nowhere near either Liberal or democratic. The proof of the pudding... and all that.
Now, with all due respect to TSE and his adoration of Cameron and Osborne, Cameron was just a poseur. "Compassionate Conservative" and all that. He could not even stand up for the Coalition against his own backwoodsmen. And ended up by stabbing the Lib Dems in the back.
Just a few months ago, the Lib Dems tabled an amendment calling on the last government to adopt a tough position on the water companies and their useless and self-serving directors. The Conservative MPs all voted against this, of course. That single vote exemplified all too clearly the way that the Conservative Party sees the people of this county. We are there to be exploited in the interests of foreign investors.
And of course the Labour Party was no better. They abstained, every last one of them. Feeble and uncaring, of course, but that was and is how Starmer wanted to play things.
I do feel sorry for all the decent and honest Conservatives, who have been so let down by the people at the top of their party. Simply spouting Lib Dem slogans will not do the trick for them - nor even supporting some Lib Dem policies, which they don't really believe in.
Finally, just to say that a lot of my family used to support the Conservatives. This year, as far as I know, not a single one of them voted Conservative. If you want to win people back, you will have to be honest and genuine.
Is that the motion where you wanted to intervene in the compensation policy of a privately owned company for political benefit?
Or the one where you wanted to overturn a pre-agreed set of increases and throw the regulatory framework into confusion?
The Conservatives need Labour to screw up, which is how you win from Opposition. Then the Reform and Lib Dem problems will solve themselves. It also helps to give people some positive reasons to vote for them, but that's relatively minor.
Labour will do the job for the Conservatives.
They simply won't be able to resist targeting higher earners, and that will hit people in many of the affluent seats the LDs hold.
Anti-Conservative voting can very quickly turn to anti-Labour voting.
It doesn’t mean that current Lib Dem voters will switch to the Conservatives, though.
Most of the Home Counties voters LDs gained last month voted Tory before Brexit and when Corbyn was Labour leader
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
The issue is that it’s now relatively easy for salaried professionals to work from where they wish. The likes of @Casino_Royale and @MaxPB are not in the top 1%, they’re in the top 5% which is where the real money gets raised. The £100k barrier means that tens of thousands of very productive people are either working four days or stuffing pensions for tax avoidance reasons.
So one question that arises from this thread is what happens to the Lib Dem commitment to PR?
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
I've seen Ed Davey asked about it..... at least I'm sure I have ..... and he's always stuck to the policy; PR is a better system. For what it's worth, I think that one of the worrying features of the last election was the low turnout; under 60% (just) and 7.7% down on 2019 and well below the 70+%'s seen up to and including 1997.
So one question that arises from this thread is what happens to the Lib Dem commitment to PR?
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
I'm 100% certain that Lib Dems will stick with the commitment to PR by STV. The commitment is not for tactical reasons of gaining seats but to improve national governance with governments that represent a majority of voters (not 33% as now).
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
The issue is that it’s now relatively easy for salaried professionals to work from where they wish. The likes of @Casino_Royale and @MaxPB are not in the top 1%, they’re in the top 5% which is where the real money gets raised. The £100k barrier means that tens of thousands of very productive people are either working four days or stuffing pensions for tax avoidance reasons.
All cliff edges have that effect.
The UC cliff edge means people work 16 hours and then claim benefits to make the rest of their wages as there's no point working full time.
The 50k cliff edge sees people work 4 days or stuff pensions.
The 100k cliff edge sees people work 4 days or stuff pensions.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
I would never consider leaving England under any circumstances short of civil war. But from a purely monetary point of view it would certainly be tempting. Currently I pay 49% of my turnover in tax which I think is a ridiculous state of affairs.
More likely, as Labour destroy our energy independence and we move to more and more imports, I will probably move back to working overseas permanently on rotation. Not something I want to do but needs must. It improves both my job prospects and my tax situation. I will still be providing the UK with oil and gas - I will just be doing it from the Middle East or South America.
Many multinationals are offering working from any country they have an office in.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Spot on. Policy doesn't come into it. Unrelenting hard work at local level and good communications with residents is the Lib Dem way. That's why the 72 seats will stick and others will follow.
Two words to wise Conservatives, from someone whose formative practical politics was fighting back the yellow peril.
First, worrying about policy principles while they are out there rattling letterboxes is part of the downfall story of many a Conservative campaign.
Second, the relevant battleground here is centre-rightist dads and mums. Lib Dems don't need to make a policy play for those voters if the Conservatives go too Reform-y. Lib Dems win them basically by default. Nice Britain doesn't like voting for a Nasty Party. Where the line between Nice and Nasty is, is up for discussion, but it exists somewhere.
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
The issue is that it’s now relatively easy for salaried professionals to work from where they wish. The likes of @Casino_Royale and @MaxPB are not in the top 1%, they’re in the top 5% which is where the real money gets raised. The £100k barrier means that tens of thousands of very productive people are either working four days or stuffing pensions for tax avoidance reasons.
It's not just people on very high incomes; I've noted that the propensity to work full time decreases rapidly from about £50,000 up if they have a partner. Consider salaried GPs. People value their children and their long weekends.
But yes, the £100k thing is an obvious thing to fix and oddly enough, a Labour government probably has more cover to do it than a Tory one if it's accompanied by other progressive policies.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
I would never consider leaving England under any circumstances short of civil war. But from a purely monetary point of view it would certainly be tempting. Currently I pay 49% of my turnover in tax which I think is a ridiculous state of affairs.
More likely, as Labour destroy our energy independence and we move to more and more imports, I will probably move back to working overseas permanently on rotation. Not something I want to do but needs must. It improves both my job prospects and my tax situation. I will still be providing the UK with oil and gas - I will just be doing it from the Middle East or South America.
Many multinationals are offering working from any country they have an office in.
It’s the flip side of WFH.
Yep. But I would not choose to live anywhere else than England unless forced to. For all its many faults it is home and it is where I am comfortable.
I'm super excited about being able to buy a place in Central London for less, assuming @boulay and @MaxPB are correct. All those people fleeing to low tax environments will hopefully sell their Regent's Park homes.
During last night's convo, wasn't that a point that was made? Abroad is excellent for providing more, nicer, house for less money.
Which leaves me with some questions that I really don't have answers to, but I have strong suspicions.
How much of our collective sense of "not enough money" is down to the cost of accommodation, rather than taxes?
How much of the money released by tax cuts since the 1980s has just dropped through to the bucket labelled "house price inflation"? (I'm imagining something like that model of the economy made of clear plastic pipes and coloured water. Science Museum or a fever dream?)
So one question that arises from this thread is what happens to the Lib Dem commitment to PR?
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
I'm 100% certain that Lib Dems will stick with the commitment to PR by STV. The commitment is not for tactical reasons of gaining seats but to improve national governance with governments that represent a majority of voters (not 33% as now).
I disagree with the premise but hope you are right. As I say it is nice when politicians actually believe in something (as long as that is not harmful to others)
I completely agree with TSE on the LD danger to the Tories. The 49 seat gap has been largely ignored so far. It clearly places the LDs in range of being the principal opposition, with all that implies and entails. 25 seats changing hands, Tory to LD, is enough. 2024 tells us that 25 seats is not many. This is astonishing for the party which recently met in a telephone box.
One has to bear in mind what most voters want: They want a centrist party that is competent, tough and honest, and does maximal good and minimum harm. This is what gives Labour a chance at this minute (ignore the talk, wait and see). Let us agree that the Tories currently have forfeited the public's support on all the above fronts.
Because the Tories have vacated the space, there are two centrist parties not in meltdown: Lab and LD. As yet there is no evidence that the Tories plan to be a third, but it's not impossible.
Lab and LD are positioned in almost all English seats thus: Safe Labour, Safe LD (few), Lab v Con; LD v Con. There are still of course safe Con seats but not as many as there were (!).
LD and Lab do not threaten each other. They are beautifully placed to slice up England to their mutual convenience.
Labour will believe, and may be right, that under such a regime the LDs could not possibly beat them but would always come second. LDs would take this as compared with always coming last.
If this does not give the current shower running the Tories nightmares, what will?
Latest BMG poll last week has the Tories now just 4% behind Labour and the LDs in 4th with Reform 3rd on 19%.
If anything the LDs are heading backwards now since last month relative to the Tories
So one question that arises from this thread is what happens to the Lib Dem commitment to PR?
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
I've seen Ed Davey asked about it..... at least I'm sure I have ..... and he's always stuck to the policy; PR is a better system. For what it's worth, I think that one of the worrying features of the last election was the low turnout; under 60% (just) and 7.7% down on 2019 and well below the 70+%'s seen up to and including 1997.
It would be nice for the pollsters to start including an estimated turnout along with their other figures.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too.
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
The issue is that it’s now relatively easy for salaried professionals to work from where they wish. The likes of @Casino_Royale and @MaxPB are not in the top 1%, they’re in the top 5% which is where the real money gets raised. The £100k barrier means that tens of thousands of very productive people are either working four days or stuffing pensions for tax avoidance reasons.
It's not just people on very high incomes; I've noted that the propensity to work full time decreases rapidly from about £50,000 up if they have a partner. Consider salaried GPs. People value their children and their long weekends.
But yes, the £100k thing is an obvious thing to fix and oddly enough, a Labour government probably has more cover to do it than a Tory one if it's accompanied by other progressive policies.
The ASI had an interesting take on that effect wrt private schooling, the suggestion being that if parents decide to take their kids out of private school because the additional cost is too high, loads of them might then choose to go part time because they don't need the extra £20-30k per year to pay for fees. CR has literally suggested he's looking at that option right now so it's not as far fetched as some would like to believe. They think the loss of tax income from these people reducing their work hours could be pretty massive, coupled with the additional costs of schooling the kids exiting the private sector we might see a pretty big net increase in spend.
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
Also, there's a difference between people going and their jobs going.
Most of us are eminently replaceable.
That's not what happens now, the job goes with the person. At my company two people have already moved, one to Greece and the other one to Majorca, they just need to come to the office for two working days a month usually the Thursday and a Friday at the end of the month.
Spain and Greece both have higher tax takes than the UK, so your example doesn’t suggest that small tax increases under Labour would be a problem.
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
The issue is that it’s now relatively easy for salaried professionals to work from where they wish. The likes of @Casino_Royale and @MaxPB are not in the top 1%, they’re in the top 5% which is where the real money gets raised. The £100k barrier means that tens of thousands of very productive people are either working four days or stuffing pensions for tax avoidance reasons.
All cliff edges have that effect.
The UC cliff edge means people work 16 hours and then claim benefits to make the rest of their wages as there's no point working full time.
The 50k cliff edge sees people work 4 days or stuff pensions.
The 100k cliff edge sees people work 4 days or stuff pensions.
Cliff edges are economic madness.
Though at least UC means more on benefits willing to take paid work rather than lose all their benefits as before
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
Sorry last line should read '...or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre left if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.'
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
Many of the people you talk about employ clever accountants and accountancy tricks and as a result pay a fraction of the rate many of us PAYE slaves do. That’s the received wisdom anyway. So maybe not so much of a loss.
Why not go down the US route of taxing income where it is earned? Somehow we need to reduce tax dodges, as the current approach aint working for those who are being asked to pay ever more whilst services get ever worse.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
The merger was 36 years ago. The young activists pounding the streets weren’t even weaned back then. Its relevance to the modern party is smaller than you believe.
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
Also, there's a difference between people going and their jobs going.
Most of us are eminently replaceable.
That's not what happens now, the job goes with the person. At my company two people have already moved, one to Greece and the other one to Majorca, they just need to come to the office for two working days a month usually the Thursday and a Friday at the end of the month.
Spain and Greece both have higher tax takes than the UK, so your example doesn’t suggest that small tax increases under Labour would be a problem.
Both countries have got foreign worker schemes that drastically lower personal taxation. Italy has just introduced one too.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
You should do it CR, honestly I think you should also look at the overseas option. The next 4-5 years here are going to be absolute hell for aspirational people and high achievers, not just in the workplace but in schools too.
Absolute hell after the Conservatives had already ratcheted the tax take up to record levels? After the Conservatives created cliff edges just above £100k by withdrawing benefits and personal allowance?
The £100k cliff edge dates back to Gordon Brown. The Tories should have fixed it alongside cutting the additional rate but they were too afraid.
Liz Truss tried, but the forces of Sunak and the Treasury soon had her out on her ear.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
No she didn't. She chose to try and eliminate the additional rate, I remember thinking at that time it was the wrong priority. The 45p rate has never been an issue, it's the £100k earnings cap that really causes issues and she chose to do nothing about it but have a symbolic removal of the additional rate instead.
Indeed, the problem is the cliff edges.
Any serious reform should eliminate all cliff edges - UC, £50k and £100k.
If that means putting up the 45p rate by a penny or two but then eliminating the cliff edges with that tax rise, then it would be a very sensible reform.
60% to 80% real tax rates are far more damaging than whether a tax rate is 42% or 45% or 47% or 48%
I wonder if eliminating the cliff edges was in the growth plan - Conhome did publish it in full but I can't find it now.
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
The issue is that it’s now relatively easy for salaried professionals to work from where they wish. The likes of @Casino_Royale and @MaxPB are not in the top 1%, they’re in the top 5% which is where the real money gets raised. The £100k barrier means that tens of thousands of very productive people are either working four days or stuffing pensions for tax avoidance reasons.
It's not just people on very high incomes; I've noted that the propensity to work full time decreases rapidly from about £50,000 up if they have a partner. Consider salaried GPs. People value their children and their long weekends.
But yes, the £100k thing is an obvious thing to fix and oddly enough, a Labour government probably has more cover to do it than a Tory one if it's accompanied by other progressive policies.
The ASI had an interesting take on that effect wrt private schooling, the suggestion being that if parents decide to take their kids out of private school because the additional cost is too high, loads of them might then choose to go part time because they don't need the extra £20-30k per year to pay for fees. CR has literally suggested he's looking at that option right now so it's not as far fetched as some would like to believe. They think the loss of tax income from these people reducing their work hours could be pretty massive, coupled with the additional costs of schooling the kids exiting the private sector we might see a pretty big net increase in spend.
Yes, that's definitely a possible side effect (though we don't know how many kids will make the switch from private to state yet...).
It's an interesting dilemma in general. Over the 19th and 20th century, productivity growth has generally led to a reduction in hours and now we see working weeks go to 35 hours or even 4 days. The difference this time is it's high earners who are doing it, rather than miners and shipyard workers, which reflects our growing inequality and lack of unionisation.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
I would never consider leaving England under any circumstances short of civil war. But from a purely monetary point of view it would certainly be tempting. Currently I pay 49% of my turnover in tax which I think is a ridiculous state of affairs.
More likely, as Labour destroy our energy independence and we move to more and more imports, I will probably move back to working overseas permanently on rotation. Not something I want to do but needs must. It improves both my job prospects and my tax situation. I will still be providing the UK with oil and gas - I will just be doing it from the Middle East or South America.
Many multinationals are offering working from any country they have an office in.
It’s the flip side of WFH.
I seem to recall a lot of Tories saying WFH was terrible and people needed to go back to the office.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
I was actively involved in the merger in 1988, combining membership lists and getting new constitutions approved etc. For a few years after that one tended to know from which tribe a member came. That was 36 years ago! Most of our current members didn't come from either tribe. It's ancient history.
I don't think the left/right axis will be the determining factor. Lib Dems are pragmatic centre where most people are.
The determining factor will be the liberal/authoritarian axis. Left (eg Green) and Right (eg Reform) parties are authoritarian. There are many liberal Tory and Labour supporters who think for themselves, tend to be better educated, and don't like being coerced. They would be at home in the Lib Dems and many have made the move.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
What a load of nonsense, my payslip every month that shows thousands paid in PAYE+NI must just be imaginary then? It's people like you that drive people like me out of the country, Labour are creating a hostile environment for high achievers and people like you are cheering it on and even when faced with the consequences you continue to do so. As I said last night, the final protest that I have left against this is to leave the country, both my wife and I are additional tax rate payers and I think the only tax avoidance I've ever bothered with is having an ISA and using AVCs to avoid the 100k cliff edge for a few years when I was on the cusp of it despite years of advice from a few colleagues to use tax minimisation schemes throughout my career.
There is no level of tax I could pay that would satisfy these people.
There is nothing these people could say to rid you of your persecution complex.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too.
TLDR: what you have been telling us about Tory members and Tugendhat might have been tosh?
I have been saying nothing particularly, I think Tugendhat has a chance though Badenoch likely wins if she gets to members.
BMG meanwhile finds Priti Patel is the preferred next Tory leader for Reform voters, followed by Cleverly and Badenoch and Jenrick with Tugendhat and Stride least favoured.
What I really think about this "I will move unless my taxes go down" thing. I welcome everyone who is born here or has moved here when they make a commitment to the country. The others are just transactional. As with any "customer" we should aim to keep them happy as long as they keep paying.
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
The issue is that it’s now relatively easy for salaried professionals to work from where they wish. The likes of @Casino_Royale and @MaxPB are not in the top 1%, they’re in the top 5% which is where the real money gets raised. The £100k barrier means that tens of thousands of very productive people are either working four days or stuffing pensions for tax avoidance reasons.
It's not just people on very high incomes; I've noted that the propensity to work full time decreases rapidly from about £50,000 up if they have a partner. Consider salaried GPs. People value their children and their long weekends.
But yes, the £100k thing is an obvious thing to fix and oddly enough, a Labour government probably has more cover to do it than a Tory one if it's accompanied by other progressive policies.
The ASI had an interesting take on that effect wrt private schooling, the suggestion being that if parents decide to take their kids out of private school because the additional cost is too high, loads of them might then choose to go part time because they don't need the extra £20-30k per year to pay for fees. CR has literally suggested he's looking at that option right now so it's not as far fetched as some would like to believe. They think the loss of tax income from these people reducing their work hours could be pretty massive, coupled with the additional costs of schooling the kids exiting the private sector we might see a pretty big net increase in spend.
If these people go part-time, the work they were doing will presumably still need doing, so other people will get promotions, start earning more, and there will be little lost tax income.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
The merger was 36 years ago. The young activists pounding the streets weren’t even weaned back then. Its relevance to the modern party is smaller than you believe.
As long as the LDs remain 4th on votes and 3rd on seats it is not very relevant, if the LDs ever want to replace the Tories or Labour as one of the 2 big parties though they have to pick a side
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
Except many of those same people were happily saying good riddance to whingeing remoaners and their businesses after the Brexit vote.
But those whinging remoaners didn't leave.
We will see if Leon, Max and thousands like them actually do so.
I’ve already left. If you haven’t noticed
Speaking of which, greetings from an unexpected bit of central Montenegro, where I am having a break for Turkish coffee. This country gets seriously wild and different as soon as you are 20km from the coast
So one question that arises from this thread is what happens to the Lib Dem commitment to PR?
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
I've seen Ed Davey asked about it..... at least I'm sure I have ..... and he's always stuck to the policy; PR is a better system. For what it's worth, I think that one of the worrying features of the last election was the low turnout; under 60% (just) and 7.7% down on 2019 and well below the 70+%'s seen up to and including 1997.
Primarily because neither possible government was actually worth voting for.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The logical thing for me to do is dip my income below £100k, maybe work four-days a week, or do a slightly easier job, and pull my kids out of private school to balance it.
At the moment I'm killing myself to do it and can barely keep my head above water.
Of course, the government would (checks notes) lose about £25-27k tax a year from me doing that.
Think of all the extra time you would have to be posting on PB!
"Brain drain" has been a popular meme since .. well, about as long as I can remember.
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
Also, there's a difference between people going and their jobs going.
Most of us are eminently replaceable.
That's not what happens now, the job goes with the person. At my company two people have already moved, one to Greece and the other one to Majorca, they just need to come to the office for two working days a month usually the Thursday and a Friday at the end of the month.
Spain and Greece both have higher tax takes than the UK, so your example doesn’t suggest that small tax increases under Labour would be a problem.
Both countries have got foreign worker schemes that drastically lower personal taxation. Italy has just introduced one too.
Great, then Labour can implement a modest tax rise and also introduce a similar foreign worker scheme and then clever, productive Greeks, Italians and Spaniards will come over here. These people will integrate into the UK, get citizenship and shift the Overton window in favour of higher taxes.
Catching up on overnight thread and @MaxPB’s frustrations and the inevitable responses.
Where I am, since the election, there has been a massive surge of people from the UK coming over, checking out the schools, seeing houses and spending a few days to decide if this is where they want to move to. These are very wealthy people but not lazy unearned wealth. These people make and made squillions in the UK and for the UK.
They are absolutely leaving the UK because of how they are going to be rogered for being successful.
Then you think if that many people are looking at moving here how many are looking at other jurisdictions.
So everyone here who says “good riddance”, remember their taxes will no longer be paying your nurses. They will no longer be supporting charities because they will be, as their peers who already are here, supporting charities here.
When they set up new parts of their businesses, because as I said they aren’t lazy, these businesses won’t be in the uk anymore.
I’m not crowing, it doesn’t change my life, but when you lose a few thousand very wealthy business people the UK will be worse off and I want a strong, happy and wealthy UK.
So when you see articles saying “we’re leaving because Starmer taxes” it’s not an empty threat. This is happening now. I am meeting one tomorrow and the tax and spend you are losing is millions - many many Foxy’s and other NHS staff.
The point is their taxes are not supporting nurses because they are not actually paying them and are squealing about having to start.
Oh grow up. They are paying huge taxes. Maybe not in the percentages you want to squeeze out of them but they are still paying millions. They are also spending millions a year on things such as cars, gardeners, housekeepers. Every single penny goes into the pot that covers the nurses.
And when that person, who was made to feel hated in the UK because they didn’t hand over every penny they have, is planning to open a new business they will have no reason to put it in the UK.
Every single one of these people will pay more in one year in taxes than people like you in a lifetime but you take the moral high ground.
You're completely missing the point of course. If you want to maximise tax collection you get people to pay more. Tyre hits the road. The sweet point is when the numbers actually leaving start to outweigh the extra revenue raised through higher taxes. We're nowhere near that point, not least because the current government hasn't in fact raised taxes yet
Edit no reason at all to hate these people as long they keep paying. I suggest a better focus is making the country attractive place to be, by for example providing working public services.
And in any event, the way to raise significantly more is from property. These leavers commonly leave property behind as they go off to enjoy the sunshine and supposedly lower levels of tax on their income, both to keep a foot here to return and because UK property has been seen as such a good investment.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
I would never consider leaving England under any circumstances short of civil war. But from a purely monetary point of view it would certainly be tempting. Currently I pay 49% of my turnover in tax which I think is a ridiculous state of affairs.
More likely, as Labour destroy our energy independence and we move to more and more imports, I will probably move back to working overseas permanently on rotation. Not something I want to do but needs must. It improves both my job prospects and my tax situation. I will still be providing the UK with oil and gas - I will just be doing it from the Middle East or South America.
Many multinationals are offering working from any country they have an office in.
It’s the flip side of WFH.
I seem to recall a lot of Tories saying WFH was terrible and people needed to go back to the office.
That was for the plebs. It's the high-value folk that can citizen anywhere
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
The merger was 36 years ago. The young activists pounding the streets weren’t even weaned back then. Its relevance to the modern party is smaller than you believe.
As long as the LDs remain 4th on votes and 3rd on seats it is not very relevant, if the LDs ever want to replace the Tories or Labour as one of the 2 big parties though they have to pick a side
Only if you think a big centre-left versus a big centre-right party is somehow an inevitability. Canada doesn’t have that. Japan doesn’t have that. France doesn’t currently have that. We could become like France, with Davey as Macron, or like Canada, with Davey as Trudeau.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
I would never consider leaving England under any circumstances short of civil war. But from a purely monetary point of view it would certainly be tempting. Currently I pay 49% of my turnover in tax which I think is a ridiculous state of affairs.
More likely, as Labour destroy our energy independence and we move to more and more imports, I will probably move back to working overseas permanently on rotation. Not something I want to do but needs must. It improves both my job prospects and my tax situation. I will still be providing the UK with oil and gas - I will just be doing it from the Middle East or South America.
Many multinationals are offering working from any country they have an office in.
It’s the flip side of WFH.
I seem to recall a lot of Tories saying WFH was terrible and people needed to go back to the office.
That was for the plebs. It's the high-value folk that can citizen anywhere
“If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere,” as the best of the last 4 Tory PMs said.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
The merger was 36 years ago. The young activists pounding the streets weren’t even weaned back then. Its relevance to the modern party is smaller than you believe.
As long as the LDs remain 4th on votes and 3rd on seats it is not very relevant, if the LDs ever want to replace the Tories or Labour as one of the 2 big parties though they have to pick a side
Not so. They can grow and occupy the middle ground without picking a side. Whether the Tories or Labour are squeezed out is up to each party. At the moment it looks more likely to be the Tories.
Voting rights for those citizens would certainly be a good thing.
Mitch McConnell says he worries that Democrats, if they win this election, will nuke the filibuster and make DC and Puerto Rico states, then set their sights on the Supreme Court. https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1829682908782854168
Mitch McConnell is a hyperpartisan GOP hack most famous for blocking Obama's Supreme Court pick by simply refusing to schedule confirmation hearings. It's just that he has recently been out-partisaned by MAGA. He should not be mistaken for a country before party elder statesman.
People worried about paying higher taxes are worried about seeing no return for their taxes. What is needed is quick and easy evidence of improvement. Something like a blitz on potholes would do the job. Unfortunately, fixing the NHS, our infrastructure or the asylum system won’t be quick or easy, but if people see something positive happening, they will be more patient with fixing the big issues.
One thing that I find interesting is the *type* of people who are thinking of moving.
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
And with remote working now available to basically anyone suddenly people are much more mobile. Were I to go both my wife and I would keep our current jobs and we'd just shift to overseas payroll. I'd need to come to the London office for 2 working days per month and my wife's terms are 10 working days per quarter.
Yes. And of course all the “oh they’ll never go” lefty wankers ignore this. A revolution. I can do all my work abroad without a hitch. Even things like moving are so much easier. Books and music are all digital and kept on tiny devices
Plus British weather is shit and worsening and British towns are ugly and getting uglier and mass immigration is, shall we say, not necessarily always adding to the attractions of UK life
I noticed the other day that England and Wales have the highest rape rates in Europe. Higher than Sweden. Absolutely true. Go look for yourself
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Spot on. Policy doesn't come into it. Unrelenting hard work at local level and good communications with residents is the Lib Dem way. That's why the 72 seats will stick and others will follow.
Two words to wise Conservatives, from someone whose formative practical politics was fighting back the yellow peril.
First, worrying about policy principles while they are out there rattling letterboxes is part of the downfall story of many a Conservative campaign.
Second, the relevant battleground here is centre-rightist dads and mums. Lib Dems don't need to make a policy play for those voters if the Conservatives go too Reform-y. Lib Dems win them basically by default. Nice Britain doesn't like voting for a Nasty Party. Where the line between Nice and Nasty is, is up for discussion, but it exists somewhere.
And with that, off to do Sunday School.
Which side of the nice/nasty line is that?
We are all the first, endeavouring to become more of the second.
For the LDs to eclipse the Tories they would have to become a genuine Orange Book centre right party and ditch the social democrats. Essentially the SDP wing of the LDs which merged with the Liberals in the 1980s would have to return to Labour. Only that would see the remaining One Nation centre right wing of the Tories permanently shift to the Liberals. The Tories would also need to lose their hard right ERG wing to Reform who would become the main party of populist Brexiteers and overtake the Tories too...
I think you're assuming an ideological coherence to the Lib Dem vote that isn't there. That's both their superpower and Achilles Heel.
The Lib Dem path to overtaking the Conservatives goes like this:
1. Identify thirty or so target seats. They will be overwhelmingly Conservative-held with a chunky Labour vote to squeeze, most will look like current Lib Dem seats- leafy. 2. Throw the kitchen sink at them for four to five years. 3. Err... 4. That's it really.
Nothing about social democracy vs. orange bookery. Everything about the failings of the government, the uselessnesses of your Tory MP and lots and lots of photos of potholes.
Half the LDs are social democrats, winning a few more Tory seats in by election style campaigns ain't making them anywhere near the main centre right party in the UK unless the Orange Bookers force the social democrats out and take full control
I know lots of LDs very well. I don't know who are "social democrats" and who are "Orange bookers" and I suspect neither do they. What unites us is making a real practical improvement to people's lives without ideological labels or hangups.
Well the LDs were formed by a merger of social democratic SDP supporters and classical liberal Liberals so I am afraid that division is there.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
The merger was 36 years ago. The young activists pounding the streets weren’t even weaned back then. Its relevance to the modern party is smaller than you believe.
As long as the LDs remain 4th on votes and 3rd on seats it is not very relevant, if the LDs ever want to replace the Tories or Labour as one of the 2 big parties though they have to pick a side
Only if you think a big centre-left versus a big centre-right party is somehow an inevitability. Canada doesn’t have that. Japan doesn’t have that. France doesn’t currently have that. We could become like France, with Davey as Macron, or like Canada, with Davey as Trudeau.
Canada does have that. Every PM in Canadian history has been Liberal (left) or Conservative (right) in one iteration or another. The parties have died and evolved, but there's consistently been that left versus right divide.
Comments
https://ifs.org.uk/articles/how-could-chancellor-raise-more-tax
Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social is the guest expert.
It makes the point that the last conservative government was very successful in raising taxes on rich individuals and business.
To such an extent that whilst we have the highest overall tax collected since the 1950s as a percentage of GDP and that is going to increase, for average earners the percentage of direct tax (income tax and NIC) paid on their earnings is the lowest.
If we were to raise tax inline with other high taxing european countries we would be taxing the middle class more rather than the rich.
Edit no reason at all to hate these people as long they keep paying. I suggest a better focus is making the country attractive place to be, by for example providing working public services.
You need independent verification - your own or third party that they are doing their job.
Given my high cholesterol and blood pressure though, and others might have noticed my anger management challenges over the last 3-4 years, she's coming round to the idea I might need a change.
That person, deciding that the risk from taxes now and the future is too great, takes their business elsewhere with the resulting revenues, spin off revenues and tax take.
So it might just be one person but they will do more damage than thousands of others so it’s not just a people numbers game, it’s how attractive the country is to people who want to make things and make money.
People seem surprised that the new Labour government isn't all that popular, but they won the election with a record low share of the vote for the party of the PM, and given how much more unpopular the Tories are, it's reasonable to think that a higher proportion than normal of those votes were primarily anti-Tory votes. In such circumstances we should expect a new government to be greeted warily, at best, by the country.
But, they are the government, and they have the chance to prove themselves to the people. It will be interesting to see which bits of the budget Reeves chooses to spend most time talking about, and which she'd rather not draw too much attention to.
Eliteified it by flogging rights away from free TV so that a mass audience is lost.
They should have done the precise opposite: kept the mass audience and kept the top of the game elite and a bit rare.
Changing those factors will irreparably damage the economy, thousands of high skilled and high yield jobs simply won't be created here when those founders decide that their startup would make more sense in Ireland or more recently Italy which has introduced a whole raft of measures to attract startup founders and remote workers.
It makes no sense to have half of the City actively looking at emigration.
VAT on school fees, for a small but significant portion of the upper middle class, will have a one off effect, for instance.
It might seem absurd to some of us, but for a few other, it's highly emotive, even beyond the not all but to their pockets.
It will have an effect, but it's hardly going to be the difference between success and failure for the economy.
Starmer's not doing much of anything but if he's getting right wing fuckpieces to leave the country, then that's something,
If people like Max and Casino decamp, it will have an effect - but not , I think, as great as they imagine.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I'd be sorry to see them go.)
Not just business owners, but employees on high salaries. And given the collapse in contracting, these people are nearly all on PAYE.
So the idea that they aren’t paying a lot of tax already is simply impossible.
Which leaves me with some questions that I really don't have answers to, but I have strong suspicions.
How much of our collective sense of "not enough money" is down to the cost of accommodation, rather than taxes?
How much of the money released by tax cuts since the 1980s has just dropped through to the bucket labelled "house price inflation"? (I'm imagining something like that model of the economy made of clear plastic pipes and coloured water. Science Museum or a fever dream?)
Largely, I suspect because Parliament isn't sitting.Normally, when a new Parliament is elected it gets straight down to work; this one had about a week of looking at each other, then went off on holiday.
Something else for which Sunak and the Conservatives are responsible for.
Do they hold with their commitment to what they perceive as a fair electoral system - even though they run the risk of ending up in 4th place behind Labour, Tory and Reform - or do they decide that in the new normal they are better off sticking with FPTP which may welll see them as the official opposition at the next election or the one after?
For all my dislike of PR I hope they stick to their guns as it is bad to see parties and politicians abandoning long held beliefs simply for the sake of electoral advantage.
For the record I think they will stick with the PR commitment but it is perhaps a question worth asking at least.
No increase in Income Tax, NI, or VAT.
We also had no CGT on main dwellings from Sir Keir during the campaign.
Plus we have the various tax rises already written in for after the Election by the Sunak Government.
I think we can expect a long-term but extensive change to Council Tax, various things around tightening up on tax breaks on wealth - lower ISA limit, possibly some things around pensions, lifetime gifts, tax avoidance / 'management' schemes, and other bits and pieces. And I agree with some CGT looks likely for an increase.
And plenty of dealing with messes such as the 100k-125k 66% rate, and other tidy-ups that could pull future income forward (that one Gordon Brown style) to front load padding the black holes.
But I'm not seeing a huge tax hike likely - even £25bn per annum is barely 1% of national income extra.
Most of us are eminently replaceable.
Mitch McConnell says he worries that Democrats, if they win this election, will nuke the filibuster and make DC and Puerto Rico states, then set their sights on the Supreme Court.
https://x.com/sahilkapur/status/1829682908782854168
Any serious reform should eliminate all cliff edges - UC, £50k and £100k.
If that means putting up the 45p rate by a penny or two but then eliminating the cliff edges with that tax rise, then it would be a very sensible reform.
60% to 80% real tax rates are far more damaging than whether a tax rate is 42% or 45% or 47% or 48%
Read into that what you will.
Yes LDs can get away with 'practical improvement to peoples' lives' at council level only when they promise to be better at repairing potholes than the Tories or Labour and blocking new homes on fields.
However that doesn't work at national level, to break into the main 2 parties either the Orange Book, classical liberal wing would have to win to have any chance of replacing the Tories as the main party of the centre right or the social democratic wing to have a chance of replacing Labour as the main party of the centre right if say Corbynites retook control of Labour.
Whatever you decide, fair play to you.
More likely, as Labour destroy our energy independence and we move to more and more imports, I will probably move back to working overseas permanently on rotation. Not something I want to do but needs must. It improves both my job prospects and my tax situation. I will still be providing the UK with oil and gas - I will just be doing it from the Middle East or South America.
Quite ridiculous that they're not states. Make the capitol territory the uninhabited land in DC spanning Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capitol building etc and not where more Americans live in than Wyoming or Vermont.
Or the one where you wanted to overturn a pre-agreed set of increases and throw the regulatory framework into confusion?
For what it's worth, I think that one of the worrying features of the last election was the low turnout; under 60% (just) and 7.7% down on 2019 and well below the 70+%'s seen up to and including 1997.
The UC cliff edge means people work 16 hours and then claim benefits to make the rest of their wages as there's no point working full time.
The 50k cliff edge sees people work 4 days or stuff pensions.
The 100k cliff edge sees people work 4 days or stuff pensions.
Cliff edges are economic madness.
It’s the flip side of WFH.
But yes, the £100k thing is an obvious thing to fix and oddly enough, a Labour government probably has more cover to do it than a Tory one if it's accompanied by other progressive policies.
If anything the LDs are heading backwards now since last month relative to the Tories
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/voters-labour-dishonest-tax-plans-fuel-duty-rise-3253546
Why not go down the US route of taxing income where it is earned? Somehow we need to reduce tax dodges, as the current approach aint working for those who are being asked to pay ever more whilst services get ever worse.
It's an interesting dilemma in general. Over the 19th and 20th century, productivity growth has generally led to a reduction in hours and now we see working weeks go to 35 hours or even 4 days. The difference this time is it's high earners who are doing it, rather than miners and shipyard workers, which reflects our growing inequality and lack of unionisation.
I don't think the left/right axis will be the determining factor. Lib Dems are pragmatic centre where most people are.
The determining factor will be the liberal/authoritarian axis. Left (eg Green) and Right (eg Reform) parties are authoritarian. There are many liberal Tory and Labour supporters who think for themselves, tend to be better educated, and don't like being coerced. They would be at home in the Lib Dems and many have made the move.
BMG meanwhile finds Priti Patel is the preferred next Tory leader for Reform voters, followed by Cleverly and Badenoch and Jenrick with Tugendhat and Stride least favoured.
Cleverly is most favoured by 2024 Tory voters, followed by Tugendhat. Amongst all voters Cleverly leads on 8%, then Tugendhat and Patel on 6%, Jenrick on 5%, Badenoch on 4% and Stride on 2%
https://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/bmg-the-i-poll-conservative-party-leadership-and-voting-intention/
Speaking of which, greetings from an unexpected bit of central Montenegro, where I am having a break for Turkish coffee. This country gets seriously wild and different as soon as you are 20km from the coast
Zero tourists up here
For a bunch of reasons, but the gloomy prospects of UK PLC was definitely one of them.
It’ll be 3 years this December.
Plus British weather is shit and worsening and British towns are ugly and getting uglier and mass immigration is, shall we say, not necessarily always adding to the attractions of UK life
I noticed the other day that England and Wales have the highest rape rates in Europe. Higher than Sweden. Absolutely true. Go look for yourself
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce31ddege9vo
Executing hostages. Casually justifying it.
Peace seems very far away, dun’it?
Trudeau is Starmer not Davey.