For those wondering why Rob Halfon was sacked yesterday the reason appears to be his closeness to George Osborne. After burning his bridges it is probably best for the Tories that Osborne's influence within the party is stemmed. His hissy fits have at least appeared to galvanize MPs around Mrs May for the time being.
It makes debate about the triple lock somewhat academic for now.
It is exactly when the debate is academic that the triple lock should be abandoned.
But it won't be now. The young 'uns have cemented it in place for the foreseeable future.
May's awful campaign is what has cemented it in place.
True, but we should at least give her credit for trying to do the right thing with the triple lock adult social care, and the winter fuel allowance. Unfortunately, yes, the net effect is the opposite, for which she deserves blame - but equally you can't exonerate cynical opposition politicans who exploited these issues (dishonestly in the case of the 'dementia tax').
What goes around comes around. The Tories can't complain. They made hay with the 'death tax'.
We can't keep cutting - thats how you slow an economy down. We need to speed it up.
Again, borrowing to invest on capex with ROI isn't the road to ruin as many of you keep screaming, its how capitalism works. Right now in this country we are beset by problems which need investment to fix:
HOUSING - runaway rent reduced disposable income and sends business under. We're not building enough homes and the ones we build are posh BTL not ones people can afford.
INFRASTRUCTURE - a rail network full of pinch points at full capacity now, never mind with room to cope with the expansion in travel. A road network crumbling beneath our feet and also full of capacity pinch points. A hub airport we can't afford to relocate thats full.
UTILITIES - we need to generate power in a timescale the private sector is unwilling to invest in. Lack of power = broken economy
SKILLS / PRODUCTIVITY. A populace increasingly unproductive due to lack of training and skills thanks to slashed funding in education and industry unwillingness to invest in its workforce. Antiquated broadband not fit for now never mind the future
The magic money tree argument is we can't afford these things. At which point the UK is out-competed by our neighbours. Isn't the truth that we can't NOT afford these things? That unless we invest now we have no competitive future within the EU or without?
Invest. Return. Capitalism. WTF is wrong with some of you? Have you forgotten how an economy works?
I live in South Bucks, one of the wealthiest areas in the country.
The roads are so full of potholes and craters they are a serious danger, but nothing is done about it.
I read you as precisely the sort of voter the Conservatives should never have lost.
I have thought about this overnight and tried to distil it down somewhat or else it tends to bulk up like an airport novel. I will Vanilla Message you a link to last night's compendious tome
....
Labour needs to lose Corbyn & McDonnell. The Tories need to lose Mrs May, Boris and the anti-Europe handbangers that have terrorised the party for so many years.
Enough! This could go on and on...
That closely mirrors my viewpoint but I came from a different direction to the same conclusion. I am the sort of voter that the Tories need to attract. After much agonising I voted Lib Dem as the least bad option. In a Tory Labour marginal I would have voted Tory to keep out Corbyn & Co but would have had a lot of self-disgust and it would have to be a closely guarded secret. We need an option that stands for effective capitalism, an open society, robust security without abandoning democracy, reduced social engineering, responsible public finances and pragmatic welfare policies. The political elements for this are mainly in the Tory party but are also present in the Lib Dems and Labour. A lot is resting on the Tories getting it right. If the centre cannot hold then the future is worrying. The notion that a dose of Corbynism is needed to educate the young is extremely irresponsible..
May should have cut some slack over Brexit to get a C&S deal with the LibDems. We are probably heading for a LibDem friendly Brexit anyway.
May should have realised that when it comes to getting enough votes to pass a Queen's Speech, Orangemen are not the only fruit.
They ruled it out post election. Never going to happen. She should be going back to the electorate and saying you need to vote a majority government in and letting fate take its course
I know they ruled out a coalition. Did they explicitly rule out C&S?
So you campaigned for Yes in the streets of Aberdeen. Strange to tell I was an organiser of 'Yes Aberdeen' and 'Quinies for Indy' and I have never ever heard of you.
You wrote that the SNP were 'hated' in the oil industry. It was an absurd statement made all the more absurd by the fact that the SNP won more votes in the city than anyone else last week and took 36 per cent of the vote over city and shire.
As for the attacks on Salmond. Gordon was a long time Tory/Liberal marginal before he intervened there in 2007. In fact over 30 years he has won nine parliamentary elections in four different North East seats unseating Tory and Liberals in the process. Over that time he took the SNP from nothing to supremacy across the country. He had the unique ability to win personally in the North East and as a party across the country.
His run had to end sometime but there is not one of his detractors on this who hold a candle to his political achievements. You attack him because you have feared him and still do.
Eck's graceless speech in defeat was the highlight of night. He never lets his public down.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
No the obvious truth is that we need to spend less. Tax is not a bottomless well of riches. Ad a country we need to live within our means
Agreed. And our means have been considerably reduced by Brexit.
We have three choices:
1. Tax more 2. Spend less 3. All of the above
Choose.
Funny how economic growth is never an option. Funny how all the experts warned austerity would choke off economic growth.
What goes around comes around. The Tories can't complain. They made hay with the 'death tax'.
They did. The difference is that Gordon Brown was going around boasting about 'free social care', omitting to mention that 'free' meant you paid £20K whether you used it or not.
It makes debate about the triple lock somewhat academic for now.
It is exactly when the debate is academic that the triple lock should be abandoned.
But it won't be now. The young 'uns have cemented it in place for the foreseeable future.
May's awful campaign is what has cemented it in place.
True, but we should at least give her credit for trying to do the right thing with the triple lock adult social care, and the winter fuel allowance. Unfortunately, yes, the net effect is the opposite, for which she deserves blame - but equally you can't exonerate cynical opposition politicans who exploited these issues (dishonestly in the case of the 'dementia tax').
What goes around comes around. The Tories can't complain. They made hay with the 'death tax'.
You were one of the people screeching loudest about the dementia tax -- and now you think increasing IHT to 49 per cent will be electorally possible.
What I objected to about the Dementia tax was the basic dishonesty of how it was presented. We were continually told that it was going to save people money by allowing them to keep more (100K as opposed to 23K) but almost no one mentioned that the scope was being widened to bring more people under it so that people who are NOT currently affected by it would be.
At the end of the day, it is designed to raise money. That means exactly what it says. It is not a saving. It is not a cut.
And I mentioned IHT as an alternative at the time. Go look.
May should have cut some slack over Brexit to get a C&S deal with the LibDems. We are probably heading for a LibDem friendly Brexit anyway.
May should have realised that when it comes to getting enough votes to pass a Queen's Speech, Orangemen are not the only fruit.
They ruled it out post election. Never going to happen. She should be going back to the electorate and saying you need to vote a majority government in and letting fate take its course
I know they ruled out a coalition. Did they explicitly rule out C&S?
Yeah, Farron said no coalition, no confidence and supply. No deal is better than a bad deal.
Mr. Eagles, there's no need for such a juvenile Americanism. *sighs*
But it's such a wonderful, crass, unpleasant expression it deserves to be brought out on certain special occasions when the situation merits it. Language evolves, American or no.
And besides, Americanisms are simply evolved Tudorisms that got detached from British English along the way.
It makes debate about the triple lock somewhat academic for now.
It is exactly when the debate is academic that the triple lock should be abandoned.
But it won't be now. The young 'uns have cemented it in place for the foreseeable future.
May's awful campaign is what has cemented it in place.
True, but we should at least give her credit for trying to do the right thing with the triple lock adult social care, and the winter fuel allowance. Unfortunately, yes, the net effect is the opposite, for which she deserves blame - but equally you can't exonerate cynical opposition politicans who exploited these issues (dishonestly in the case of the 'dementia tax').
There was no dishonesty in the fallout over the "dementia tax". The Tories proposed a tweak to an already awful system which would have shifted even more burden for care costs from the state to the individual. Labour proposed a cap to individual liability and the formation of a National Care Service funded by wealth and business taxation. This would have been a collectivised solution, fundamentally different from the Tory solution. Therefore, there was a genuine choice.
Of course, the public reaction was more to do with them becoming informed about how unjust and shambolic the current arrangements are, which the Tories were proposing essentially to keep. They couldn't understand why we collectivise the costs of some illnesses and not others, and they didn't buy the bogus distinction between "health" and "social" care. Quite understandably, they balked at the prospect of losing everything they had worked for if they became unwell.
It makes debate about the triple lock somewhat academic for now.
It is exactly when the debate is academic that the triple lock should be abandoned.
But it won't be now. The young 'uns have cemented it in place for the foreseeable future.
May's awful campaign is what has cemented it in place.
True, but we should at least give her credit for trying to do the right thing with the triple lock adult social care, and the winter fuel allowance. Unfortunately, yes, the net effect is the opposite, for which she deserves blame - but equally you can't exonerate cynical opposition politicans who exploited these issues (dishonestly in the case of the 'dementia tax').
Now was not the time to be brave. Not with Brexit. Now was the time to put everything else on the backburner, steer Brexit through as least damagingly as possible, stand up after it was all over, and then say: "now what?".
But instead they were overtaken by hubris and thought we would swallow it all.
We now have an inkling of the magnitude of that "price worth paying" and, importantly, that many people seem not to want to pay it any more. Hence the freebies going down so well and the hard-nosed reality getting a slap in the face.
The election really, really was all about Brexit. Not in itself (hard, soft, papier-mache), but in how it ties any would-be government's hands behind its back.
May should have cut some slack over Brexit to get a C&S deal with the LibDems. We are probably heading for a LibDem friendly Brexit anyway.
May should have realised that when it comes to getting enough votes to pass a Queen's Speech, Orangemen are not the only fruit.
They ruled it out post election. Never going to happen. She should be going back to the electorate and saying you need to vote a majority government in and letting fate take its course
I know they ruled out a coalition. Did they explicitly rule out C&S?
Vince Cable has been making sensible noises recently and I do not see the Lib Dems bringing down tne government at present
May should have cut some slack over Brexit to get a C&S deal with the LibDems. We are probably heading for a LibDem friendly Brexit anyway.
May should have realised that when it comes to getting enough votes to pass a Queen's Speech, Orangemen are not the only fruit.
They ruled it out post election. Never going to happen. She should be going back to the electorate and saying you need to vote a majority government in and letting fate take its course
I know they ruled out a coalition. Did they explicitly rule out C&S?
Yeah, Farron said no coalition, no confidence and supply. No deal is better than a bad deal.
Once bitten, and all. The LDs aren't going to trust the Tories again.
You were one of the people screeching loudest about the dementia tax -- and now you think increasing IHT to 49 per cent will be electorally possible.
What I objected to about the Dementia tax was the basic dishonesty of how it was presented. We were continually told that it was going to save people money by allowing them to keep more (100K as opposed to 23K) but almost no one mentioned that the scope was being widened to bring more people under it so that people who are NOT currently affected by it would be.
At the end of the day, it is designed to raise money. That means exactly what it says. It is not a saving. It is not a cut.
And I mentioned IHT as an alternative at the time. Go look.
Equally applied inheritance tax is completely different from randomly applied catastrophic inheritance tax. There are some people on here who seem unable to understand this. It is perfectly possible to advocate for the former and against the latter. What's the mental click here?
We can't keep cutting - thats how you slow an economy down. We need to speed it up.
Again, borrowing to invest on capex with ROI isn't the road to ruin as many of you keep screaming, its how capitalism works. Right now in this country we are beset by problems which need investment to fix:
HOUSING - runaway rent reduced disposable income and sends business under. We're not building enough homes and the ones we build are posh BTL not ones people can afford.
INFRASTRUCTURE - a rail network full of pinch points at full capacity now, never mind with room to cope with the expansion in travel. A road network crumbling beneath our feet and also full of capacity pinch points. A hub airport we can't afford to relocate thats full.
UTILITIES - we need to generate power in a timescale the private sector is unwilling to invest in. Lack of power = broken economy
SKILLS / PRODUCTIVITY. A populace increasingly unproductive due to lack of training and skills thanks to slashed funding in education and industry unwillingness to invest in its workforce. Antiquated broadband not fit for now never mind the future
The magic money tree argument is we can't afford these things. At which point the UK is out-competed by our neighbours. Isn't the truth that we can't NOT afford these things? That unless we invest now we have no competitive future within the EU or without?
Invest. Return. Capitalism. WTF is wrong with some of you? Have you forgotten how an economy works?
I live in South Bucks, one of the wealthiest areas in the country.
The roads are so full of potholes and craters they are a serious danger, but nothing is done about it.
The same is true in Trafford. I am beginning to sympathise with those who use Chelsea Tractors to go to the shops
What goes around comes around. The Tories can't complain. They made hay with the 'death tax'.
They did. The difference is that Gordon Brown was going around boasting about 'free social care', omitting to mention that 'free' meant you paid £20K whether you used it or not.
Nah. You were hoisted by your own petard. Tragic that you broke the consensus on social care.
There was no dishonesty in the fallout over the "dementia tax".
No dishonesty? Really?
"For the first time you'll be asked to cash-in your home when it comes to paying for your care and your treatment.
"And the worst thing, to my mind - let's say you're the wife of a husband who has to go into a nursing home because of dementia, the reality is your house, the house that you still live in, the family home, will have to be cashed-in now under the Tories' heartless dementia tax.
Social care - only option that isn't electoral suicide is to make it free, part of the NHS and pay for it through general taxation. Sell it as an expansion of cradle to grave care by the state and tie it in with a big sweetie for the young. Sort out housing, especially the slum landlord mentality of the property portfolio BTL racketeers and you have a comprehensive package to sell to the electorate. Then it's just a question of whether you go more statist or capitalist on the rest. Back to the pre Thatcher norms.
What goes around comes around. The Tories can't complain. They made hay with the 'death tax'.
They did. The difference is that Gordon Brown was going around boasting about 'free social care', omitting to mention that 'free' meant you paid £20K whether you used it or not.
If the alternative is having the capital in your home eaten up when you are alive, £20k when you are dead doesn't seem such a bad deal
Currency is a huge factor. Potential foreign workers thinking of coming to the UK have now to contemplate an exchange rate that is substantially down and likely to fall further.
So, it is all about economic migration then? That's nice to know.
I thought that was the idea, as far as the EU is concerned.
And conversely, of course. Our people would now find it made economic sense to go and work in Poland etc. Except that the Leavers, having sunk the pound, don`t want them to be able to. All very strange.
That's pretty much what is happening with my son.
His firm is shutting down as a direct consequence of Brexit. It's a private firm that does research into global warming for Governments and other Agencies. He's ok, because he will find work abroad, though probably outside the EU. I'll have to travel further to see him, but there's always Skype, and of course he'll be paid in a harder currency.
So you campaigned for Yes in the streets of Aberdeen. Strange to tell I was an organiser of 'Yes Aberdeen' and 'Quinies for Indy' and I have never ever heard of you.
You wrote that the SNP were 'hated' in the oil industry. It was an absurd statement made all the more absurd by the fact that the SNP won more votes in the city than anyone else last week and took 36 per cent of the vote over city and shire.
As for the attacks on Salmond. Gordon was a long time Tory/Liberal marginal before he intervened there in 2007. In fact over 30 years he has won nine parliamentary elections in four different North East seats unseating Tory and Liberals in the process. Over that time he took the SNP from nothing to supremacy across the country. He had the unique ability to win personally in the North East and as a party across the country.
His run had to end sometime but there is not one of his detractors on this who hold a candle to his political achievements. You attack him because you have feared him and still do.
For a start I have not attacked Salmond in any way. I have not mentioned him by name nor referred to him even indirectly. Stop lying.
Again why should I fear someone I support. I am critical of the SNP because they are failing through their own fault and that puts at risk something I feel is of importance and will make Scotland and the rest of the British isles a better and more democratic place.
If the only response you have to my comments is to attack me and lie then you really are beyond help. I get far more coherent and reasoned responses from the other nationalists on here.
It makes debate about the triple lock somewhat academic for now.
It is exactly when the debate is academic that the triple lock should be abandoned.
But it won't be now. The young 'uns have cemented it in place for the foreseeable future.
May's awful campaign is what has cemented it in place.
True, but we should at least give her credit for trying to do the right thing with the triple lock adult social care, and the winter fuel allowance. Unfortunately, yes, the net effect is the opposite, for which she deserves blame - but equally you can't exonerate cynical opposition politicans who exploited these issues (dishonestly in the case of the 'dementia tax').
What goes around comes around. The Tories can't complain. They made hay with the 'death tax'.
LMAO - the Tories really didn't think long term, did they?
This is why I don't feel sorry for them when it comes to the flack that the 'Dementia Tax' got.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
No the obvious truth is that we need to spend less. Tax is not a bottomless well of riches. Ad a country we need to live within our means
Agreed. And our means have been considerably reduced by Brexit.
We have three choices:
1. Tax more 2. Spend less 3. All of the above
Choose.
I choose a fiscal stimulus to grow the economy and put is on track for a prosperous future.
Fiscal stimuli are irrelevant. Whatever the income level is there has to be a balance between tax and spend. Whilst your scenario is an option it can only work if spending is not allowed to grow and taxes are not reduced so that the fiscal surplus can reduce the debt pile.
To date, our politicians have failed to show that they will not increase spending as soon as money shows up.
Social care - only option that isn't electoral suicide is to make it free, part of the NHS and pay for it through general taxation. Sell it as an expansion of cradle to grave care by the state and tie it in with a big sweetie for the young. Sort out housing, especially the slum landlord mentality of the property portfolio BTL racketeers and you have a comprehensive package to sell to the electorate. Then it's just a question of whether you go more statist or capitalist on the rest. Back to the pre Thatcher norms.
The problem is the huge cost. A report said that it is too complex for insurance companies to arrive at a sensible protection policy and to include it in the NHS would require a 5% rise in basic tax
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
No the obvious truth is that we need to spend less. Tax is not a bottomless well of riches. Ad a country we need to live within our means
"As a country we need to live within our means" refers to the balance of payments.
Remember when the balance of payments was the metric, not the government deficit? It was a much more sensible metric.
Currency is a huge factor. Potential foreign workers thinking of coming to the UK have now to contemplate an exchange rate that is substantially down and likely to fall further.
So, it is all about economic migration then? That's nice to know.
I thought that was the idea, as far as the EU is concerned.
And conversely, of course. Our people would now find it made economic sense to go and work in Poland etc. Except that the Leavers, having sunk the pound, don`t want them to be able to. All very strange.
That's pretty well what is happening with my son.
His firm is shutting down as a direct consequence of Brexit. It's a private firm that does research into global warming for Governments and other Agencies. He's ok, because he will find work abroad, though probably outside the EU. I'll have to travel further to see him, but there's always Skype, and of course he'll be paid in a harder currency.
Sorry to hear this, Peter. What's the name of his firm?
I read you as precisely the sort of voter the Conservatives should never have lost.
I have thought about this overnight and tried to distil it down somewhat or else it tends to bulk up like an airport novel. I will Vanilla Message you a link to last night's compendious tome
In the current climate, I am not sure that I can be won back. I have decided that really I want a party that reflects my own values and there are none. Much to my own amazement I am more of an internationalist than I ever suspected - Brexit taught me that lesson and it was a hard one to learn.
Setting Brexit aside (for there seems to be no choices on that one), let me move on to other things.
Where the Conservatives went wrong this time was that they looked like a bunch of amateurs. The litany of mistakes is numerous and well documented. How can a party run a country if it cannot run a campaign? The only messages that made it through the mess of the election was the Dementia Tax and a woman who listens to no one saying "Vote for me". It is not a campaign, it is an appeal.
To be fair, Labour did not do a good job of campaigning either, but they got more messages through and they were almost all about unsustainable spending. However, given where I grew up, McDonnell and Corbyn's past support for the IRA was an anti-Labour factor too.
So I voted Lib Dem this time and it is the first time I have done that for a long while. I voted for them simply because I feel I must vote and they were the least odious choice on my ballot paper. I was so close to spoiling my ballot or simply not bothering at all.
None of the parties were honest. None seemed to talk about the mess we are in, the very strong likelihood that it will get worse before it gets better and what solutions (if any) exist.
Labour needs to lose Corbyn & McDonnell. The Tories need to lose Mrs May, Boris and the anti-Europe handbangers that have terrorised the party for so many years.
Enough! This could go on and on...
This matches my views almost exactly. The country needs a business-friendly party of international liberalism, equivalent to the CDU in Germany and en Marche in France, and which could incorporate the social democracy of several Socialist parties in Europe. According to this research, that party could attract 30% of pre-general election voters and could build from there.
I agree the Lib Dems aren't that party. I hope they might become it, not least because it would see the Liberals returning to their 19C roots. To be fair, this last election caught the Lib Dems at the worst time. They need to reinvent themselves and you can't do that during an election campaign.
There was no dishonesty in the fallout over the "dementia tax".
No dishonesty? Really?
"For the first time you'll be asked to cash-in your home when it comes to paying for your care and your treatment.
"And the worst thing, to my mind - let's say you're the wife of a husband who has to go into a nursing home because of dementia, the reality is your house, the house that you still live in, the family home, will have to be cashed-in now under the Tories' heartless dementia tax.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
It was also completely ill-conceived. When is the tax collected? When the well spouse dies? When any resident dependents die? Or would the Tories have put them out on the streets?
And do you get double the floor if both husband and wife need care? What a mess.
The outrage was fully justified and not the result of the public being misled.
If the alternative is having the capital in your home eaten up when you are alive, £20k when you are dead doesn't seem such a bad deal
Yes, it was arguably quite a reasonable policy. So is the one Theresa May proposed. Basically someone has to pay, and pay a lot. Unfortunately it's impossible to have a sensible political debate about it, although if Theresa May had got her large majority, we might at last have made some progress. Out of the window now, of course, as is dealing with all the other long-standing problems.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
No the obvious truth is that we need to spend less. Tax is not a bottomless well of riches. Ad a country we need to live within our means
Agreed. And our means have been considerably reduced by Brexit.
We have three choices:
1. Tax more 2. Spend less 3. All of the above
Choose.
Funny how economic growth is never an option. Funny how all the experts warned austerity would choke off economic growth.
Funny how it hasn't. Funny how our economic growth has exceeded international comparisons. Funny how high growth hasn't miraculously closed the structural gap.
The cost of Brexit is however a different thing altogether. Did nobody on the Government side ever say that desirable or not, we simply cannot afford it?
This is an interesting point. The idea that something may be genuinely unaffordable seems to be a heresy. We can't afford space navies but there is an assumption that the state can pay for anything else we want by milking "the rich".
The current definition of "the rich", if we use McDonnell's, is the 900,000 people - 3% - on more than £80k a year. The average they are on is £122k a year. The £42k above £80k that they earn grosses up to about £38 billion, of which they already pay £20 billion in tax. Any of them on £100 to £120k with a student loan pays a marginal rate of 71%.
It seems clear that if you try to tax this group more it rapidly becomes counterproductive. If you took 100% or nearly so of what someone earns over £80k they will clearly stop earning over £80k, so you'll lose whatever you were collecting. But even at some point short of that you are just taking off them in tax what they'd have handed over anyway in VAT, fuel duty, alcohol duty, etc.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
The country's wealth is tied up in unearned and untaxed windfall gains on property equity. All the politicians know this, and they are coming for it, directly (Labour) or indirectly (Tories).
Those aren't gains. They're inflation.
Sell your house, contemplate your "gain", then buy another house and see what's left of it.
For those wondering why Rob Halfon was sacked yesterday the reason appears to be his closeness to George Osborne. After burning his bridges it is probably best for the Tories that Osborne's influence within the party is stemmed. His hissy fits have at least appeared to galvanize MPs around Mrs May for the time being.
Wasn't it Halfon who's aide plotted to bring down Alan Duncan with an Israeli diplomat? I was surprised he survived that one to be honest and I'm not aware if he ever apologised.
We can't keep cutting - thats how you slow an economy down. We need to speed it up.
Again, borrowing to invest on capex with ROI isn't the road to ruin as many of you keep screaming, its how capitalism works. Right now in this country we are beset by problems which need investment to fix:
HOUSING - runaway rent reduced disposable income and sends business under. We're not building enough homes and the ones we build are posh BTL not ones people can afford.
INFRASTRUCTURE - a rail network full of pinch points at full capacity now, never mind with room to cope with the expansion in travel. A road network crumbling beneath our feet and also full of capacity pinch points. A hub airport we can't afford to relocate thats full.
UTILITIES - we need to generate power in a timescale the private sector is unwilling to invest in. Lack of power = broken economy
SKILLS / PRODUCTIVITY. A populace increasingly unproductive due to lack of training and skills thanks to slashed funding in education and industry unwillingness to invest in its workforce. Antiquated broadband not fit for now never mind the future
The magic money tree argument is we can't afford these things. At which point the UK is out-competed by our neighbours. Isn't the truth that we can't NOT afford these things? That unless we invest now we have no competitive future within the EU or without?
Invest. Return. Capitalism. WTF is wrong with some of you? Have you forgotten how an economy works?
I live in South Bucks, one of the wealthiest areas in the country.
The roads are so full of potholes and craters they are a serious danger, but nothing is done about it.
The same is true in Trafford. I am beginning to sympathise with those who use Chelsea Tractors to go to the shops
The solution, which your council will surely go for sooner or later, is a PFI road repair contract.
Then your council will take on a long-term loan for £30 million or more, employ a contractor who will spend the next three years actively looking for as much to mend as possible, whether needed or not. Your local area will be littered with roadworks, temporary traffic lights and road closures. At the end, when the £30m is all gone, you'll have very shiny new roads, but your council and its future taxpayers will still be paying for it all in thirty or forty years' time.
Social care - only option that isn't electoral suicide is to make it free, part of the NHS and pay for it through general taxation. Sell it as an expansion of cradle to grave care by the state and tie it in with a big sweetie for the young. Sort out housing, especially the slum landlord mentality of the property portfolio BTL racketeers and you have a comprehensive package to sell to the electorate. Then it's just a question of whether you go more statist or capitalist on the rest. Back to the pre Thatcher norms.
The problem is the huge cost. A report said that it is too complex for insurance companies to arrive at a sensible protection policy and to include it in the NHS would require a 5% rise in basic tax
So be it. Bump up the personal allowance to protect low earners, reintorduce a starter rate of tax for the forst 5k aabove that, 5% on the upper rate and we all take the hit.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
No the obvious truth is that we need to spend less. Tax is not a bottomless well of riches. Ad a country we need to live within our means
"As a country we need to live within our means" refers to the balance of payments.
Remember when the balance of payments was the metric, not the government deficit? It was a much more sensible metric.
Well that went out of the window when we joined the EEC.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
Social care - only option that isn't electoral suicide is to make it free, part of the NHS and pay for it through general taxation. Sell it as an expansion of cradle to grave care by the state and tie it in with a big sweetie for the young. Sort out housing, especially the slum landlord mentality of the property portfolio BTL racketeers and you have a comprehensive package to sell to the electorate. Then it's just a question of whether you go more statist or capitalist on the rest. Back to the pre Thatcher norms.
The problem is the huge cost. A report said that it is too complex for insurance companies to arrive at a sensible protection policy and to include it in the NHS would require a 5% rise in basic tax
Economists really need to get out of the income tax paradigm!
Social care - only option that isn't electoral suicide is to make it free, part of the NHS and pay for it through general taxation. Sell it as an expansion of cradle to grave care by the state and tie it in with a big sweetie for the young. Sort out housing, especially the slum landlord mentality of the property portfolio BTL racketeers and you have a comprehensive package to sell to the electorate. Then it's just a question of whether you go more statist or capitalist on the rest. Back to the pre Thatcher norms.
The problem is the huge cost. A report said that it is too complex for insurance companies to arrive at a sensible protection policy and to include it in the NHS would require a 5% rise in basic tax
So be it. Bump up the personal allowance to protect low earners, reintorduce a starter rate of tax for the forst 5k aabove that, 5% on the upper rate and we all take the hit.
And then you have the question why should the young have to pay more tax to keep the wealthy from paying for their social care so that they can hand down their wealth to their children.
There is only one way out of this problem and that is by appointing an independent commission and that all parties commit to accepting the recommendations
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
Taxation tends to become economically stifling once it exceeds 37-38% of GDP.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
Now you are just making things up.
No, you clearly have zero understanding of the current arrangements and the Tory proposal. Kindly recuse yourself from the discussion until you have done some research. You're embarrassing yourself.
His run had to end sometime but there is not one of his detractors on this who hold a candle to his political achievements.
You mean hold a vote that was his life's ambition, on a date of his choosing, with the wording of his choosing, with the mandate of his choosing, and lose it?
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
Taxation tends to become economically stifling once it exceeds 37-38% of GDP.
Running out of money tends to become economically stifling too. We are already cutting deep, but we can cut deeper. We are not planning to invade anywhere so disband the Army. Reduce the Royal Navy to sufficient forces for protecting the UK and the same for the RAF. That will shave a few billion off the public bill. Increase IHT to 49% across the board, no exceptions. The dead have no need of property and the living still get more than half of it.
Now we are drifting apart, I'm afraid.
An internationalist like yourself should recognise the need for a strong UK to be engaged in the world and shaping world affairs with both soft and hard power.
Unfortunately we are stuck in our mindsets. Brexit means a UK that is less engaged in the world, and not shaping world affairs as much as before, due to having less soft power. The hard power wasn't huge anyway. An internationalist deals with the world as it is, which includes coping with a Britain that chose to Brexit, but he wouldn't say that that was a useful thing to do.
There was no dishonesty in the fallout over the "dementia tax".
No dishonesty? Really?
"For the first time you'll be asked to cash-in your home when it comes to paying for your care and your treatment.
"And the worst thing, to my mind - let's say you're the wife of a husband who has to go into a nursing home because of dementia, the reality is your house, the house that you still live in, the family home, will have to be cashed-in now under the Tories' heartless dementia tax.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
It was also completely ill-conceived. When is the tax collected? When the well spouse dies? When any resident dependents die? Or would the Tories have put them out on the streets?
And do you get double the floor if both husband and wife need care? What a mess.
The outrage was fully justified and not the result of the public being misled.
No the second paragraph is absolutely false. Typical left wing dishonesty.
On the UK Budget, the biggest economic problem is that people are living longer but not working longer. This is not a good long-term demographic trend for sustainability.
The truth is that the existing system of pensions, pensioner benefits, state healthcare and social care is all unsustainable in its present form, and robbing Peter to pay Paul only buys you a few years.
What are the known unknowns on the "positives"?
The impact of A.I. upon the economy (it could drastically increase productivity and slash labour costs in some areas) and possibly the economic benefits of fracking, and new energy technology, lowering energy costs. Economies run on energy.
Basically, increasing productivity by lowering input costs and increasing outputs, thereby accelerating the growth rate of the economy.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
Taxation tends to become economically stifling once it exceeds 37-38% of GDP.
Running out of money tends to become economically stifling too. We are already cutting deep, but we can cut deeper. We are not planning to invade anywhere so disband the Army. Reduce the Royal Navy to sufficient forces for protecting the UK and the same for the RAF. That will shave a few billion off the public bill. Increase IHT to 49% across the board, no exceptions. The dead have no need of property and the living still get more than half of it.
Now we are drifting apart, I'm afraid.
An internationalist like yourself should recognise the need for a strong UK to be engaged in the world and shaping world affairs with both soft and hard power.
Unfortunately we are stuck in our mindsets. Brexit means a UK that is less engaged in the world, and not shaping world affairs as much as before, due to having less soft power. The hard power wasn't huge anyway. An internationalist deals with the world as it is, which includes coping with a Britain that chose to Brexit, but he wouldn't say that that was a useful thing to do.
And wrong again. Brexit means that the UK regains many of its positions on international bodies that it had lost through membership of the EU. We become more engaged in the world not less.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
Now you are just making things up.
No, you clearly have zero understanding of the current arrangements and the Tory proposal. Kindly recuse yourself from the discussion until you have done some research. You're embarrassing yourself.
It is you who clearly have no understanding. Either that or you are just making it up for political point scoring.
We can't keep cutting - thats how you slow an economy down. We need to speed it up.
Again, borrowing to invest on capex with ROI isn't the road to ruin as many of you keep screaming, its how capitalism works. Right now in this country we are beset by problems which need investment to fix:
HOUSING - runaway rent reduced disposable income and sends business under. We're not building enough homes and the ones we build are posh BTL not ones people can afford.
INFRASTRUCTURE - a rail network full of pinch points at full capacity now, never mind with room to cope with the expansion in travel. A road network crumbling beneath our feet and also full of capacity pinch points. A hub airport we can't afford to relocate thats full.
UTILITIES - we need to generate power in a timescale the private sector is unwilling to invest in. Lack of power = broken economy
SKILLS / PRODUCTIVITY. A populace increasingly unproductive due to lack of training and skills thanks to slashed funding in education and industry unwillingness to invest in its workforce. Antiquated broadband not fit for now never mind the future
The magic money tree argument is we can't afford these things. At which point the UK is out-competed by our neighbours. Isn't the truth that we can't NOT afford these things? That unless we invest now we have no competitive future within the EU or without?
Invest. Return. Capitalism. WTF is wrong with some of you? Have you forgotten how an economy works?
Yes I think that (and your previous post) is a sensible way forward. Trouble is, neither Lab nor the Cons have the credibility to promote increased spending at the ZLB, for obviously differing reasons. Although Lab did include effective massive fiscal stimulus, the voters just put it into the "economic profligacy" bucket.
You were one of the people screeching loudest about the dementia What I objected to about the Dementia tax was the basic dishonesty of how it was presented. We were continually told that it was going to save people money by allowing them to keep more (100K as opposed to 23K) but almost no one mentioned that the scope was being widened to bring more people under it so that people who are NOT currently affected by it would be.
At the end of the day, it is designed to raise money. That means exactly what it says. It is not a saving. It is not a cut.
And I mentioned IHT as an alternative at the time. Go look.
1. The dementia tax did not raise money. It was fiscally neutral, but gave money to one group (those in residential care) & took money from another (those using home care).
2. You can propose a universal IHT if you want. It is an unworkable solution because no party with that in its manifesto will ever manage to get elected.
Anyhow, after your truly ridiculous remark about champagne and residential care, there is no point arguing with you.
Setting Brexit aside (for there seems to be no choices on that one), let me move on to other things.
Where the Conservatives went wrong this time was that they looked like a bunch of amateurs. The litany of mistakes is numerous and well documented. How can a party run a country if it cannot run a campaign? The only messages that made it through the mess of the election was the Dementia Tax and a woman who listens to no one saying "Vote for me". It is not a campaign, it is an appeal.
To be fair, Labour did not do a good job of campaigning either, but they got more messages through and they were almost all about unsustainable spending. However, given where I grew up, McDonnell and Corbyn's past support for the IRA was an anti-Labour factor too.
So I voted Lib Dem this time and it is the first time I have done that for a long while. I voted for them simply because I feel I must vote and they were the least odious choice on my ballot paper. I was so close to spoiling my ballot or simply not bothering at all.
None of the parties were honest. None seemed to talk about the mess we are in, the very strong likelihood that it will get worse before it gets better and what solutions (if any) exist.
Labour needs to lose Corbyn & McDonnell. The Tories need to lose Mrs May, Boris and the anti-Europe handbangers that have terrorised the party for so many years.
Enough! This could go on and on...
This matches my views almost exactly. The country needs a business-friendly party of international liberalism, equivalent to the CDU in Germany and en Marche in France, and which could incorporate the social democracy of several Socialist parties in Europe. According to this research, that party could attract 30% of pre-general election voters and could build from there.
I agree the Lib Dems aren't that party. I hope they might become it, not least because it would see the Liberals returning to their 19C roots. To be fair, this last election caught the Lib Dems at the worst time. They need to reinvent themselves and you can't do that during an election campaign.
Despite an appalling campaign and a precarious result, the LibDems aren't that badly positioned for whatever comes along. Most probably they will benefit from very unhappy Tories, Corbyn's surge having gone as far as it will go in attracting new recruits. Alternatively Labour falters (or gets into office!) and there'll be a lot of people looking for a more sensible centre left alternative. On Brexit, they'll probably be proved right, and may well even see the second referendum happen that they foolishly proposed a year or two prematurely.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
No the obvious truth is that we need to spend less. Tax is not a bottomless well of riches. Ad a country we need to live within our means
Agreed. And our means have been considerably reduced by Brexit.
We have three choices:
1. Tax more 2. Spend less 3. All of the above
Choose.
Funny how economic growth is never an option. Funny how all the experts warned austerity would choke off economic growth.
Growth needs to come first and then you can tax, or at least it needs to happen in tandem. Unfortunately we voted to cut growth and increase austerity through Brexit.
A lesson from history is that the Tories become utterly crippled whenever they try and propose a new tax.
Poll tax, pasty tax, granny tax, dementia tax..
You can see why stealth taxes and fiscal drag are so favoured by Chancellors.
It never gets mentioned that Insurance Premium Tax has doubled in the last few years, from 6% to 12%.
Virtually every law abiding citizen is affected by it as it is paid on car insurance, buildings and contents, life insurance etc.
It must raise billions and is easy to collect, expect more of the same.
Brexit gives all the parties a chance to remove the remaining 5% VAT on fuel bills thus offering all voters a 5% cut in their bill.It could be paid for by a Wealth Tax,perhaps specifically targeted at PB Tories.That's a zinger of a policy but will anyone go for it?
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
Now you are just making things up.
No, you clearly have zero understanding of the current arrangements and the Tory proposal. Kindly recuse yourself from the discussion until you have done some research. You're embarrassing yourself.
It is you who clearly have no understanding. Either that or you are just making it up for political point scoring.
Do you deny that many people currently receiving residential care would, for the first time, have had a putative charge placed against their house under the Tory proposals?
I think HMG might shelf a specific deficit commitment, but will commit to have debt as % GDP falling by GE2022, and below 80%, because that's what's required to maintain market confidence.
The idea that there is a favoured reservoir of rich people with bottomless pockets to be milked doesn't stand up to study. We have a rather frightening situation where the tax base is unsustainably narrow. You can't have 10% of taxpayers providing 60% of the income tax. It seems inevitable to me that a government that wants to spend more and finds it can't borrow it will have to start expropriating individuals. There isn't enough income so confiscation of cash and possessions will have to start.
Indeed. We are running the economy on a 40(ish)% spend whilst running taxation at a 37(ish)% level. For a while it was worse and the figures were more like 42% and 35%.
The obvious truth is that we all need to pay more tax, not just the rich.
No the obvious truth is that we need to spend less. Tax is not a bottomless well of riches. Ad a country we need to live within our means
Agreed. And our means have been considerably reduced by Brexit.
We have three choices:
1. Tax more 2. Spend less 3. All of the above
Choose.
I choose a fiscal stimulus to grow the economy and put is on track for a prosperous future.
@ Sandy
Are there any circumstances in which you'd agree the government should spend less? I don't mean in specific areas, but generally - is higher spending ever a bad thing?
Social care - only option that isn't electoral suicide is to make it free, part of the NHS and pay for it through general taxation. Sell it as an expansion of cradle to grave care by the state and tie it in with a big sweetie for the young. Sort out housing, especially the slum landlord mentality of the property portfolio BTL racketeers and you have a comprehensive package to sell to the electorate. Then it's just a question of whether you go more statist or capitalist on the rest. Back to the pre Thatcher norms.
The problem is the huge cost. A report said that it is too complex for insurance companies to arrive at a sensible protection policy and to include it in the NHS would require a 5% rise in basic tax
So be it. Bump up the personal allowance to protect low earners, reintorduce a starter rate of tax for the forst 5k aabove that, 5% on the upper rate and we all take the hit.
And then you have the question why should the young have to pay more tax to keep the wealthy from paying for their social care so that they can hand down their wealth to their children.
There is only one way out of this problem and that is by appointing an independent commission and that all parties commit to accepting the recommendations
Yep, the only way is to have a death tax now, too much has gone to the Boomers for the current working population to keep funding them.
USA. Keynesian expansion under Obama. Growth better than us. A capitalist country - not an ignorant ideological austerity one.
There was very little of a 'Keynesian expansion' under Obama. In fact, if you include state-level spending, there was a similar gentle reining-in of expenditure to Osborne's. It certainly wasn't anything like the mad spending spree that the Left sometimes propose here.
Of course, the US economy also had other big advantages: less dependence on the poorly-performing Eurozone and, most importantly of all, a very flexible hire-and-fire labour market, which made adaptation quicker. Oddly, the Left are curiously blind to that last point.
Social care - only option that isn't electoral suicide is to make it free, part of the NHS and pay for it through general taxation. Sell it as an expansion of cradle to grave care by the state and tie it in with a big sweetie for the young. Sort out housing, especially the slum landlord mentality of the property portfolio BTL racketeers and you have a comprehensive package to sell to the electorate. Then it's just a question of whether you go more statist or capitalist on the rest. Back to the pre Thatcher norms.
The problem is the huge cost. A report said that it is too complex for insurance companies to arrive at a sensible protection policy and to include it in the NHS would require a 5% rise in basic tax
So be it. Bump up the personal allowance to protect low earners, reintorduce a starter rate of tax for the forst 5k aabove that, 5% on the upper rate and we all take the hit.
And then you have the question why should the young have to pay more tax to keep the wealthy from paying for their social care so that they can hand down their wealth to their children.
There is only one way out of this problem and that is by appointing an independent commission and that all parties commit to accepting the recommendations
Because they might need that same care later in life. It's the same argument for the NHS or education, why should we fund the wealthy to be healthy or educate their children? As for wealth, go after that as well. Make wealth a dirty word when it comes before national stability, fairness and equity. There is no defence for wealth in truth, we are just wedded to it as a concept.
Invest. Return. Capitalism. WTF is wrong with some of you? Have you forgotten how an economy works?
Perhaps you could point us to a country which has successfully carried out your plan and therefore done beter than us since the financial crisis?
USA. Keynesian expansion under Obama. Growth better than us. A capitalist country - not an ignorant ideological austerity one.
They also took the hit on their housing up front, rather than try and do everything to prop the bubble up as we have. All the countries with the early property crises - the US, Ireland, Spain - are now recovering quickly.
Increase IHT to 49% across the board, no exceptions. The dead have no need of property and the living still get more than half of it.
I have a bit of an issue with the view that property really, truly, belongs to the state by default, which is where this argument leads.
I am not in favour of an increase in IHT myself, but something needs to be done. The country is living beyond its means and we seem to be very resistant to admitting that.
The biggest failure of politics at the moment is the inability to discuss the truth.
There was no dishonesty in the fallout over the "dementia tax".
No dishonesty? Really?
"For the first time you'll be asked to cash-in your home when it comes to paying for your care and your treatment.
"And the worst thing, to my mind - let's say you're the wife of a husband who has to go into a nursing home because of dementia, the reality is your house, the house that you still live in, the family home, will have to be cashed-in now under the Tories' heartless dementia tax.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
It was also completely ill-conceived. When is the tax collected? When the well spouse dies? When any resident dependents die? Or would the Tories have put them out on the streets?
And do you get double the floor if both husband and wife need care? What a mess.
The outrage was fully justified and not the result of the public being misled.
I was so concerned about the proposed policy, and what we learnt about the existing situation during that week, that I tool legal advice.
I said on here from the minute she stood up and announced it as a key part of the manifesto that it was the biggest clusterf in the history of GE policy announcements.
Seems that I was not wrong judging by the poll result in the older age groups.
Nick Timothy and May detonated a monumental mine under their own campaign.
The worst of it is nothing will probably be done on social care now for another couple of years or more.
Mr. Eagles, there's no need for such a juvenile Americanism. *sighs*
But it's such a wonderful, crass, unpleasant expression it deserves to be brought out on certain special occasions when the situation merits it. Language evolves, American or no.
And besides, Americanisms are simply evolved Tudorisms that got detached from British English along the way.
To stub your toe is an Americanism, as is starting a conversation by saying "Hello", as is the word 'maybe', as is knocking (rather than scratching) at doors.
Increase IHT to 49% across the board, no exceptions. The dead have no need of property and the living still get more than half of it.
I have a bit of an issue with the view that property really, truly, belongs to the state by default, which is where this argument leads.
I am not in favour of an increase in IHT myself, but something needs to be done. The country is living beyond its means and we seem to be very resistant to admitting that.
The biggest failure of politics at the moment is the inability to discuss the truth.
I would suggest introducing say a 5% band for estates over £100k. that would raise plenty of money, but not be super onerous.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
Now you are just making things up.
No, you clearly have zero understanding of the current arrangements and the Tory proposal. Kindly recuse yourself from the discussion until you have done some research. You're embarrassing yourself.
With respect, who the fuck are you to tell anyone on this forum to remove themselves from any discussion?
A lesson from history is that the Tories become utterly crippled whenever they try and propose a new tax.
Poll tax, pasty tax, granny tax, dementia tax..
You can see why stealth taxes and fiscal drag are so favoured by Chancellors.
True. Although the real lesson is that the Tories self destruct whenever they get obsessed over Europe.
Despite the fact that the Tory parliamentary party split almost evenly on whether to Remain or Leave, the party went into the election well united on its EU policy.
It's the electorate that delivered the rebuff. And that was down to austerity, tax and a wooden campaign, not a desire to re-open the wounds of the referendum campaign.
This is an obsession of Europhiles, who now smell blood.
NI Sec appears to be involved in DUP/Tory negotiations !
" On a possible conflict of interest, Mr Brokenshire stresses that his work on the devolution settlement was "separate". "
Whilst it might not detonate the GFA (then again it might) it could well destroy Stormont talks and lead to re-establishment of direct rule. At which point Labour propose loosening abortion laws in NI and the Tories either have to vote with it and torpedoing their alliance or vote against and lose hundreds of thousands more female votes.
USA. Keynesian expansion under Obama. Growth better than us. A capitalist country - not an ignorant ideological austerity one.
There was very little of a 'Keynesian expansion' under Obama. In fact, if you include state-level spending, there was a similar gentle reining-in of expenditure to Osborne's. It certainly wasn't anything like the mad spending spree that the Left sometimes propose here.
Of course, the US economy also had other big advantages: less dependence on the poorly-performing Eurozone and, most importantly of all, a very flexible hire-and-fire labour market, which made adaptation quicker. Oddly, the Left are curiously blind to that last point.
The downside of the latter was a lot of labour market pain that we managed to avoid. When I was in California in 08/9 there were people standing at freeway junctions with placards seeking work. I am sure Mr Tebbit would have thought this admirable enterprise, but I am glad we avoided having the M1 lined with jobseekers.
But that's true. Most houses were exempt from the asset assessment because a spouse or dependent are living there. The second paragraph is absolutely correct. This was the essence of the Tory proposal.
Now you are just making things up.
No, you clearly have zero understanding of the current arrangements and the Tory proposal. Kindly recuse yourself from the discussion until you have done some research. You're embarrassing yourself.
It is you who clearly have no understanding. Either that or you are just making it up for political point scoring.
Do you deny that many people currently receiving residential care would, for the first time, have had a putative charge placed against their house under the Tory proposals?
Yes I do deny it. It is not for the first time at all. It has been that way for many years - thanks to Labour. Currently if you receive residential care your house is included in the value of your assets and must be sold when you are still alive, to pay for your care. The Tory proposal moves this to after your death. The status of other dependents doesn't change in either case.
ff43 - the trouble with Liberal Internationalism is that it doesn't seem very well thought through. It forgets that globalisation is first and foremost about capitalism, often in parts of the world where the rule of law is not well established. Not a great combination. It smacks of an outdated belief that 'the west' can write the rules of the international order and the rest will begrudgingly follow. Leaving aside the fact that what we're really talking about here is not Liberalism but (Western) Imperialism, it's fairly obvious that this is not what is happening and liberals need to think again how to deal with the outside world.
To my mind the symbolic figure of this increasingly open world over the last four decades is not Tony Blair or Barack Obama or Emmanuel Macron. It's Donald Trump. Now that's the real one not the fake politician one who pretends to care about he rust belt. A man who has built a dynastic fortune by doing business all over the world, benefiting hugely from the free movement of capital to leverage and clients among the nouveau riche of the developing world wanting to buy real estate. If people like Trump are the prime beneficiaries of all this isn't it time for liberals to start considering whether this new world order is such a good thing? Or indeed whether they are really liberals at all in an idealistic sense or just following their own self-interest. Nothing necessarily illegal in that but some honesty wouldn't be amiss.
My guess is between Eden and Brown. She will hang on until the Article 50 talks are finished and stand down.
Likely exit points, in order:
- very soon, if last night's achievement proves illusory or a deal cant be cut with DUP (10%) - when parliament breaks up for the summer (30%) - when a transitional 'heads of terms' soft and staged Brexit is agreed (20%) - when the DUP deal collapses (20%) - when Brexit is done (10%) - when the next election starts to loom (10%)
USA. Keynesian expansion under Obama. Growth better than us. A capitalist country - not an ignorant ideological austerity one.
There was very little of a 'Keynesian expansion' under Obama. In fact, if you include state-level spending, there was a similar gentle reining-in of expenditure to Osborne's. It certainly wasn't anything like the mad spending spree that the Left sometimes propose here.
Of course, the US economy also had other big advantages: less dependence on the poorly-performing Eurozone and, most importantly of all, a very flexible hire-and-fire labour market, which made adaptation quicker. Oddly, the Left are curiously blind to that last point.
Even with inflation creeping up, fiscal stimulus in a liquidity trap, at the ZLB, is a credible govt policy, Richard.
he downside of the latter was a lot of labour market pain that we managed to avoid. When I was in California in 08/9 there were people standing at freeway junctions with placards seeking work. I am sure Mr Tebbit would have thought this admirable enterprise, but I am glad we avoided having the M1 lined with jobseekers.
I agree entirely. As I've said many times, I think Osborne judged the macro-economics perfectly. We avoided the big bump in unemployment (and of course, as France demonstrates, very inflexible labour laws are no protection against that, they just shift the burden on to the young). In the US, the recovery was swifter than here, but at a human cost - my point is that it's not an example of the kind of fantasy economics which Corbynites propose, where they claim we could have spent our way our of a debt crisis. There is no such example in the world.
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And what is perhaps more amazing is that it was completely avoidable.
May, like Cameron, didn't spend five minutes exploring the scenario where they lost.
https://twitter.com/AJogee/status/874331396222967810
The roads are so full of potholes and craters they are a serious danger, but nothing is done about it.
At the end of the day, it is designed to raise money. That means exactly what it says. It is not a saving. It is not a cut.
And I mentioned IHT as an alternative at the time. Go look.
And besides, Americanisms are simply evolved Tudorisms that got detached from British English along the way.
Of course, the public reaction was more to do with them becoming informed about how unjust and shambolic the current arrangements are, which the Tories were proposing essentially to keep. They couldn't understand why we collectivise the costs of some illnesses and not others, and they didn't buy the bogus distinction between "health" and "social" care. Quite understandably, they balked at the prospect of losing everything they had worked for if they became unwell.
But instead they were overtaken by hubris and thought we would swallow it all.
We now have an inkling of the magnitude of that "price worth paying" and, importantly, that many people seem not to want to pay it any more. Hence the freebies going down so well and the hard-nosed reality getting a slap in the face.
The election really, really was all about Brexit. Not in itself (hard, soft, papier-mache), but in how it ties any would-be government's hands behind its back.
https://twitter.com/kayaburgess/status/874561360490889217
"For the first time you'll be asked to cash-in your home when it comes to paying for your care and your treatment.
"And the worst thing, to my mind - let's say you're the wife of a husband who has to go into a nursing home because of dementia, the reality is your house, the house that you still live in, the family home, will have to be cashed-in now under the Tories' heartless dementia tax.
http://www.aol.co.uk/money/2017/05/19/farron-tories-dementia-tax-proposals-unspeakably-heartless/
His firm is shutting down as a direct consequence of Brexit. It's a private firm that does research into global warming for Governments and other Agencies. He's ok, because he will find work abroad, though probably outside the EU. I'll have to travel further to see him, but there's always Skype, and of course he'll be paid in a harder currency.
Again why should I fear someone I support. I am critical of the SNP because they are failing through their own fault and that puts at risk something I feel is of importance and will make Scotland and the rest of the British isles a better and more democratic place.
If the only response you have to my comments is to attack me and lie then you really are beyond help. I get far more coherent and reasoned responses from the other nationalists on here.
This is why I don't feel sorry for them when it comes to the flack that the 'Dementia Tax' got.
To date, our politicians have failed to show that they will not increase spending as soon as money shows up.
Poll tax, pasty tax, granny tax, dementia tax..
You can see why stealth taxes and fiscal drag are so favoured by Chancellors.
Remember when the balance of payments was the metric, not the government deficit? It was a much more sensible metric.
I agree the Lib Dems aren't that party. I hope they might become it, not least because it would see the Liberals returning to their 19C roots. To be fair, this last election caught the Lib Dems at the worst time. They need to reinvent themselves and you can't do that during an election campaign.
It was also completely ill-conceived. When is the tax collected? When the well spouse dies? When any resident dependents die? Or would the Tories have put them out on the streets?
And do you get double the floor if both husband and wife need care? What a mess.
The outrage was fully justified and not the result of the public being misled.
Funny how our economic growth has exceeded international comparisons.
Funny how high growth hasn't miraculously closed the structural gap.
Sell your house, contemplate your "gain", then buy another house and see what's left of it.
Then your council will take on a long-term loan for £30 million or more, employ a contractor who will spend the next three years actively looking for as much to mend as possible, whether needed or not. Your local area will be littered with roadworks, temporary traffic lights and road closures. At the end, when the £30m is all gone, you'll have very shiny new roads, but your council and its future taxpayers will still be paying for it all in thirty or forty years' time.
Virtually every law abiding citizen is affected by it as it is paid on car insurance, buildings and contents, life insurance etc.
It must raise billions and is easy to collect, expect more of the same.
There is only one way out of this problem and that is by appointing an independent commission and that all parties commit to accepting the recommendations
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/06/11/exclusive-jeremy-corbyn-warns-theresa-may-must-protect-lgbt-rights/?utm_source=PNT&utm_medium=SocialTwitter&utm_content=TwitterMB&utm_campaign=PNTwitter
The truth is that the existing system of pensions, pensioner benefits, state healthcare and social care is all unsustainable in its present form, and robbing Peter to pay Paul only buys you a few years.
What are the known unknowns on the "positives"?
The impact of A.I. upon the economy (it could drastically increase productivity and slash labour costs in some areas) and possibly the economic benefits of fracking, and new energy technology, lowering energy costs. Economies run on energy.
Basically, increasing productivity by lowering input costs and increasing outputs, thereby accelerating the growth rate of the economy.
https://twitter.com/ian_a_jones/status/874296159149445120
2. You can propose a universal IHT if you want. It is an unworkable solution because no party with that in its manifesto will ever manage to get elected.
Anyhow, after your truly ridiculous remark about champagne and residential care, there is no point arguing with you.
On such fine margins...we really would be in limbo land!
Are there any circumstances in which you'd agree the government should spend less? I don't mean in specific areas, but generally - is higher spending ever a bad thing?
Of course, the US economy also had other big advantages: less dependence on the poorly-performing Eurozone and, most importantly of all, a very flexible hire-and-fire labour market, which made adaptation quicker. Oddly, the Left are curiously blind to that last point.
As for wealth, go after that as well. Make wealth a dirty word when it comes before national stability, fairness and equity. There is no defence for wealth in truth, we are just wedded to it as a concept.
" On a possible conflict of interest, Mr Brokenshire stresses that his work on the devolution settlement was "separate". "
The biggest failure of politics at the moment is the inability to discuss the truth.
I said on here from the minute she stood up and announced it as a key part of the manifesto that it was the biggest clusterf in the history of GE policy announcements.
Seems that I was not wrong judging by the poll result in the older age groups.
Nick Timothy and May detonated a monumental mine under their own campaign.
The worst of it is nothing will probably be done on social care now for another couple of years or more.
We object to them at our peril.
It's the electorate that delivered the rebuff. And that was down to austerity, tax and a wooden campaign, not a desire to re-open the wounds of the referendum campaign.
This is an obsession of Europhiles, who now smell blood.
You'd have to have a heart of stone etc etc
To my mind the symbolic figure of this increasingly open world over the last four decades is not Tony Blair or Barack Obama or Emmanuel Macron. It's Donald Trump. Now that's the real one not the fake politician one who pretends to care about he rust belt. A man who has built a dynastic fortune by doing business all over the world, benefiting hugely from the free movement of capital to leverage and clients among the nouveau riche of the developing world wanting to buy real estate. If people like Trump are the prime beneficiaries of all this isn't it time for liberals to start considering whether this new world order is such a good thing? Or indeed whether they are really liberals at all in an idealistic sense or just following their own self-interest. Nothing necessarily illegal in that but some honesty wouldn't be amiss.
Worth a read...
http://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy280a.html
- very soon, if last night's achievement proves illusory or a deal cant be cut with DUP (10%)
- when parliament breaks up for the summer (30%)
- when a transitional 'heads of terms' soft and staged Brexit is agreed (20%)
- when the DUP deal collapses (20%)
- when Brexit is done (10%)
- when the next election starts to loom (10%)
*Edit. Possibly less than that as the A50 talks will complete before the formal exit from the EU.