£83bn - let's say that's true and forget it's a lowball.
From that £23bn is raised on corporations by increasing corporation tax, this will apparently have no negative impact on employment or investment. Sure.
£60bn comes from those earning more than £80k. There are around 1.3m people who earn more than that in the UK. Quite simply there aren't enough people to get that kind of money from. It works out to an average tax rise of over £40,000 per person in that wage bracket.
This manifesto is fantasy. Nothing in it is credible and anyone who chooses to vote for Labour for any reason is part of that fantasyland.
After three years of Brexit we are now used to utterly fantastical politics.
So all Doctors are getting whacked on tax...that will attract more here wont it.
Why does nobody ever point out that taking money out of large companies, raising taxes on investments/ Dividends, basically attacking “greedy“ shareholders has a direct on every single person with a direct interest in personal pension funds, and an indirect interest in public sector fund backed pensions?
The case for pension funds is essentially the same as for individuals - if you organise the economy on the basis of low public investment, low pay and high dependence on an underskilled workforce, you will bump along with 1% growth indefinitely; if Britain is more dynamically managed you may have a slightly lower share of the cake but it'll be a bigger cake.
I’m not sure what point you are making? Are you arguing that Labour’s plans will actually increase the value of pension funds (individual or collective)?
The point is Labours infrastructure investment increases productivitity which increases corporate profits. All perfectly true and reasonable. Whether it is enough to offset the higher rates (and new methods) proposed is very dubious and completely untested.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I think it's fair to say that the number of people who have the ability to be medical doctors is somewhat smaller than the number of people capable of teaching (@ydoethur - yes, I know the numbers vary by subject and the quality may vary a lot too).
However, the number of people wanting to be doctors is high. A friend of mine got 4 As in his AS Levels in maths, chemistry, biology and physics and applied to medical schools. Not one of the four he applied to gave him an interview.
Therefore, I think as an employer, the government should have a lot more bargaining power with doctors. I'd be keen to tie medical students to the NHS - if you leave, you repay your loan on commercial terms.
The immediate danger of labour to people on normal wages isn't the tax policy, it's the interest rate rises that will be needed to prop up sterling with such profligate spending on the horizon, or imported inflation via weaker sterling
The Guardian included that in their fact check of the debate:
The "official" fact check lot didn't touch this because judging claims about the future is impossible. But the Guardian gave a good go at telling us that the Tories are just as risky in this regard (clue: they are not).
£83bn - let's say that's true and forget it's a lowball.
From that £23bn is raised on corporations by increasing corporation tax, this will apparently have no negative impact on employment or investment. Sure.
£60bn comes from those earning more than £80k. There are around 1.3m people who earn more than that in the UK. Quite simply there aren't enough people to get that kind of money from. It works out to an average tax rise of over £40,000 per person in that wage bracket.
This manifesto is fantasy. Nothing in it is credible and anyone who chooses to vote for Labour for any reason is part of that fantasyland.
After three years of Brexit we are now used to utterly fantastical politics.
So all Doctors are getting whacked on tax...that will attract more here wont it.
The difficulties in international recruitment are not particularly financial. The bigger obstacles are bureaucratic, around recognition of qualifications* for example, and on quality of the post. It is far easier to recruit international Trainees wanting teaching hospital surgical training, much less so in community mental health.
*Currently all EEA qualifications are automatically recognised for example, but Indian Doctors have to take exams which require a year of study and significant funds.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I think it's fair to say that the number of people who have the ability to be medical doctors is somewhat smaller than the number of people capable of teaching (@ydoethur - yes, I know the numbers vary by subject and the quality may vary a lot too).
However, the number of people wanting to be doctors is high. A friend of mine got 4 As in his AS Levels in maths, chemistry, biology and physics and applied to medical schools. Not one of the four he applied to gave him an interview.
Therefore, I think as an employer, the government should have a lot more bargaining power with doctors. I'd be keen to tie medical students to the NHS - if you leave, you repay your loan on commercial terms.
The immediate danger of labour to people on normal wages isn't the tax policy, it's the interest rate rises that will be needed to prop up sterling with such profligate spending on the horizon, or imported inflation via weaker sterling
The Guardian included that in their fact check of the debate:
The "official" fact check lot didn't touch this because judging claims about the future is impossible. But the Guardian gave a good go at telling us that the Tories are just as risky in this regard (clue: they are not).
The fact that people with appopriate qualifications cant get places on medical courses has more to do with bad man power planning by the NHS that there being not enough capable candidates. From memory medical courses remain the most oversubscribed of all degress,
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
Why the fuck was Fiona Bunce not stepping in to point out the member of the public was a total fucking Moron?
That was absolutely excruciating to watch.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
Blimey, Burgon is correct here.
Burgon flubed hard here. He should have have the stats to hand to point out the median wage is 22 grand and the mean around 30 grand.
But I have a lot of sympathy in the face of such idiocy. The women next to the questioner goig "absolute rubbish" when Burgon said he only earned 40 grand as a solicitor was the shit cherry on top of the poo cake.
Eighty grand is fucking huge mate.
It is a nice income, but you might be surprised how tax erodes the difference significantly.
A long serving teacher without any special enhancements will be on £40k. Double that to £80k only brings in an extra £24k after tax.
What tends to erode the difference for a significant proportion of households on those budgets is brands. Get a 90% the same car made in the same factory but with a different badge and pay an extra £5-20k. Get an Armani T-shirt instead of a Next T-shirt and pay 200% premium.
Easy to trade up but little benefit gained, and then people find it hard to trade down when finances require it. As we are not taught how to manage our finances, many do not significantly notice the benefit of "just" £24k after tax as it is often frittered away.
Our household income will be just under £100k, but I shop at Aldi, Morrisons and Asda, will scavenge around for a yellow whoops sticker and religiously screw down my utility and insurance companies. However, if I choose to fritter away my ‘surplus income’ I’m still doing a better job than handing it to the government to fritter on my behalf.
If its frittered away I am not sure it matters who does the fritting....obviously the challenge for governments is to show that the money used can be spent wisely.
A big issue with the Labour plan in practical terms is even if what they propose is the right level of government spending, to make that in one jump is incredibly unlikely to result in efficient use of the additional spending as govt attention will be spread around and the economy would be in a massive state of flux making allocation decsions harder.
Why does nobody ever point out that taking money out of large companies, raising taxes on investments/ Dividends, basically attacking “greedy“ shareholders has a direct on every single person with a direct interest in personal pension funds, and an indirect interest in public sector fund backed pensions?
The case for pension funds is essentially the same as for individuals - if you organise the economy on the basis of low public investment, low pay and high dependence on an underskilled workforce, you will bump along with 1% growth indefinitely; if Britain is more dynamically managed you may have a slightly lower share of the cake but it'll be a bigger cake.
I’m not sure what point you are making? Are you arguing that Labour’s plans will actually increase the value of pension funds (individual or collective)?
The point is Labours infrastructure investment increases productivitity which increases corporate profits. All perfectly true and reasonable. Whether it is enough to offset the higher rates (and new methods) proposed is very dubious and completely untested.
That doesn't follow. There is no evidence that mass government spending increases productivity, in fact quite the opposite Marxist nations have tended to see productivity fall not rise.
And if you're looking to increase productivity then putting up major tax increases on R&D and Investment seems a bizarre place to start.
Why the fuck was Fiona Bunce not stepping in to point out the member of the public was a total fucking Moron?
That was absolutely excruciating to watch.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
Blimey, Burgon is correct here.
Burgon flubed hard here. He should have have the stats to hand to point out the median wage is 22 grand and the mean around 30 grand.
But I have a lot of sympathy in the face of such idiocy. The women next to the questioner goig "absolute rubbish" when Burgon said he only earned 40 grand as a solicitor was the shit cherry on top of the poo cake.
What you are missing is... it doesn't matter a damn how thick a voter is, if people like that guy think Labour are going to screw them, others in a similar position are going to think exactly the same. 80k is good money, but its not huge... and people like him are paying a feck of a lot of tax anyway.
Its the same principle of people hating inheritance tax, even if they are never going to pay any on pay any, they instinctively hate the tax.
And Labour's manifesto promises to reverse the Osborne inheritance tax cut which was hugely popular and increase income tax for those earning over £80 000, anyone owning shares or dividends will also be hit by making the tax rate on them equivalent to income tax as will anyone who works for a company or buys from a company through the corporation tax hike leading to wage cuts, job cuts and price rises.
As the IFS have also pointed out that will have to just be for starters
This is a very big one... running a Ltd company and paying yourself a dividend instead of a salary. Though not a policy I disagree with and is just tax avoidance.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I agree with secondary teachers being underpaid but I don't think it's fair to compare them with GPs. Mentally, I'd say primary school teaching is tougher as primary school children are GENERALLY more hyperactive than teenagers.
Why does nobody ever point out that taking money out of large companies, raising taxes on investments/ Dividends, basically attacking “greedy“ shareholders has a direct on every single person with a direct interest in personal pension funds, and an indirect interest in public sector fund backed pensions?
The case for pension funds is essentially the same as for individuals - if you organise the economy on the basis of low public investment, low pay and high dependence on an underskilled workforce, you will bump along with 1% growth indefinitely; if Britain is more dynamically managed you may have a slightly lower share of the cake but it'll be a bigger cake.
I’m not sure what point you are making? Are you arguing that Labour’s plans will actually increase the value of pension funds (individual or collective)?
The point is Labours infrastructure investment increases productivitity which increases corporate profits. All perfectly true and reasonable. Whether it is enough to offset the higher rates (and new methods) proposed is very dubious and completely untested.
That doesn't follow. There is no evidence that mass government spending increases productivity, in fact quite the opposite Marxist nations have tended to see productivity fall not rise.
And if you're looking to increase productivity then putting up major tax increases on R&D and Investment seems a bizarre place to start.
Isn't that just Keynesianism, and don't most economists agree it works? (Not that I think economics is anything other than voodoo magic)
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I think it's fair to say that the number of people who have the ability to be medical doctors is somewhat smaller than the number of people capable of teaching (@ydoethur - yes, I know the numbers vary by subject and the quality may vary a lot too).
However, the number of people wanting to be doctors is high. A friend of mine got 4 As in his AS Levels in maths, chemistry, biology and physics and applied to medical schools. Not one of the four he applied to gave him an interview.
Therefore, I think as an employer, the government should have a lot more bargaining power with doctors. I'd be keen to tie medical students to the NHS - if you leave, you repay your loan on commercial terms.
The immediate danger of labour to people on normal wages isn't the tax policy, it's the interest rate rises that will be needed to prop up sterling with such profligate spending on the horizon, or imported inflation via weaker sterling
The Guardian included that in their fact check of the debate:
The "official" fact check lot didn't touch this because judging claims about the future is impossible. But the Guardian gave a good go at telling us that the Tories are just as risky in this regard (clue: they are not).
The fact that people with appopriate qualifications cant get places on medical courses has more to do with bad man power planning by the NHS that there being not enough capable candidates. From memory medical courses remain the most oversubscribed of all degress,
Far easier to import the ready made doctors and nurses from abroad.
Why does nobody ever point out that taking money out of large companies, raising taxes on investments/ Dividends, basically attacking “greedy“ shareholders has a direct on every single person with a direct interest in personal pension funds, and an indirect interest in public sector fund backed pensions?
The case for pension funds is essentially the same as for individuals - if you organise the economy on the basis of low public investment, low pay and high dependence on an underskilled workforce, you will bump along with 1% growth indefinitely; if Britain is more dynamically managed you may have a slightly lower share of the cake but it'll be a bigger cake.
I’m not sure what point you are making? Are you arguing that Labour’s plans will actually increase the value of pension funds (individual or collective)?
The point is Labours infrastructure investment increases productivitity which increases corporate profits. All perfectly true and reasonable. Whether it is enough to offset the higher rates (and new methods) proposed is very dubious and completely untested.
That doesn't follow. There is no evidence that mass government spending increases productivity, in fact quite the opposite Marxist nations have tended to see productivity fall not rise.
And if you're looking to increase productivity then putting up major tax increases on R&D and Investment seems a bizarre place to start.
I thought you studied economics? There is a broad consensus (not no evidence) that infrastructure investment raises productivity.
That does not mean all infrastructure investment raises productivity, of course some of it can be wasteful. I do not support Labours proposals as they are trying to do far too much all in one go but more investment in our infrastructure is a good starting place.
Just a question on Labour’s “free” full fibre broadband. What happens to those who don’t yet have access and therefore have to settle for the lower speed services? Will they all get it for free as well? And do all ISPs therefore just close down on day one?
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I think it's fair to say that the number of people who have the ability to be medical doctors is somewhat smaller than the number of people capable of teaching (@ydoethur - yes, I know the numbers vary by subject and the quality may
The immediate danger of labour to people on normal wages isn't the tax policy, it's the interest rate rises that will be needed to prop up sterling with such profligate spending on the horizon, or imported inflation via weaker sterling
The Guardian included that in their fact check of the debate:
The "official" fact check lot didn't touch this because judging claims about the future is impossible. But the Guardian gave a good go at telling us that the Tories are just as risky in this regard (clue: they are not).
The fact that people with appopriate qualifications cant get places on medical courses has more to do with bad man power planning by the NHS that there being not enough capable candidates. From memory medical courses remain the most oversubscribed of all degress,
Around 75% of medical school applicants with the right A levels are currently successful. I know, because I do some of the applications!
We do try to weed out the sociopaths and amoral, as well as those lacking in interpersonal skills, so it is not just academic qualifications that matter.
£83bn - let's say that's true and forget it's a lowball.
From that £23bn is raised on corporations by increasing corporation tax, this will apparently have no negative impact on employment or investment. Sure.
£60bn comes from those earning more than £80k. There are around 1.3m people who earn more than that in the UK. Quite simply there aren't enough people to get that kind of money from. It works out to an average tax rise of over £40,000 per person in that wage bracket.
This manifesto is fantasy. Nothing in it is credible and anyone who chooses to vote for Labour for any reason is part of that fantasyland.
Looking at the detail, the vast majority is supposed to come from corporations - not high earners.
1. Increase tax on 80k+ = 5.4bn. 2. Corporation tax cuts reverse = 23.7bn. 3. Unitary tax of multinationals = 6.3bn. 4. Taxing investment income as other income = 14bn. 5. Financial transactions tax = 8.8bn 6. Tax avoidance and evasion = 6.2bn 7. Corporate tax reliefs review = 4.3bn 8. R&D funding reform = 4.0bn 9. Reverse cuts to inheritance tax and Bank Levy, impose VAT on private school fees, scrap Married Persons Allowance, introduce a second homes tax = 5.2bn 10. Additional tax revenue from fiscal multiplier = 5bn
Most of those changes look sensible to me. Even Boris has implicitly accepted the principle behind increasing corporation tax.
Isn't there some double counting in there? If there's no tax relief on R&D, then profits will be lower, so less corporation tax. Ditto with financial transactions.
In fairness the additional tax revenue from the fiscal multiplier shows that whoever spent 20-30 minutes inventing these figures has an excellent sense of humour. I mean it’s not like taxes like that would cause a collapse in demand, VAT receipts or UK registered CT is it?
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich is a relative term which means different things to different people.
The question that needs to be asked is does labour's manifesto appeal to more than 30% of the populace and will it attract conservatives which they need to increase their percentages, or does it scare them and others witless and there is a further move towards the conservatives. Furthermore will those who were toying with the lib dems now feel it is too much of a risk to do anthing but to vote conservative to keep Corbyn out
The polls over this weekend and throughout next week should give an indication
Labour are also going to be subjected to a massive wave of targeted, negative social media. If the Kiwis are as good with this ammunition they've been given as I expect, then this manifesto should result in a Labour fall in the polls over the next two weeks. Perhaps quite a significant one. It is toxic to the "aspirational" vote. It makes taking the risk of lending your vote to the LibDems or Brexit Party far to high to take.
Is 45 Con, 25 Labour, 11 LD too fanciful an outcome?
That's the last time the GOP tries to take on a County Durham lass (in fact several of them didn't, they just made angry speeches and didn't ask her any questions).
Why the fuck was Fiona Bunce not stepping in to point out the member of the public was a total fucking Moron?
That was absolutely excruciating to watch.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
Blimey, Burgon is correct here.
But I have a lot of sympathy in the face of such idiocy. The women next to the questioner goig "absolute rubbish" when Burgon said he only earned 40 grand as a solicitor was the shit cherry on top of the poo cake.
Eighty grand is fucking huge mate.
It is a nice income, but you might be surprised how tax erodes the difference significantly.
A long serving teacher without any special enhancements will be on £40k. Double that to £80k only brings in an extra £24k after tax.
Easy to trade up but little benefit gained, and then people find it hard to trade down when finances require it. As we are not taught how to manage our finances, many do not significantly notice the benefit of "just" £24k after tax as it is often frittered away.
Our household income will be just under £100k, but I shop at Aldi, Morrisons and Asda, will scavenge around for a yellow whoops sticker and religiously screw down my utility and insurance companies. However, if I choose to fritter away my ‘surplus income’ I’m still doing a better job than handing it to the government to fritter on my behalf.
If its frittered away I am not sure it matters who does the fritting....obviously the challenge for governments is to show that the money used can be spent wisely.
A big issue with the Labour plan in practical terms is even if what they propose is the right level of government spending, to make that in one jump is incredibly unlikely to result in efficient use of the additional spending as govt attention will be spread around and the economy would be in a massive state of flux making allocation decsions harder.
This is what’s so annoying when people claim that Labour plans aren’t “extreme” just because they would have been mainstream policies in the 70s. That may or may not be true, but it’s one thing believing that to be a desirable end state, and another to simply attempt to reach that state in 5 years, with little consideration of the unravelling needed to get there.
Why the fuck was Fiona Bunce not stepping in to point out the member of the public was a total fucking Moron?
That was absolutely excruciating to watch.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
Blimey, Burgon is correct here.
Burgon flubed hard here. He should have have the stats to hand to point out the median wage is 22 grand and the mean around 30 grand.
But I have a lot of sympathy in the face of such idiocy. The women next to the questioner goig "absolute rubbish" when Burgon said he only earned 40 grand as a solicitor was the shit cherry on top of the poo cake.
What you are missing is... it doesn't matter a damn how thick a voter is, if people like that guy think Labour are going to screw them, others in a similar position are going to think exactly the same. 80k is good money, but its not huge... and people like him are paying a feck of a lot of tax anyway.
Its the same principle of people hating inheritance tax, even if they are never going to pay any on pay any, they instinctively hate the tax.
Eighty grand is fucking huge mate.
It isn't in London or the south east.
If you're paying for full time childcare, an expensive season ticket and a big mortgage you are "self-sustaining" but you have many financial commitments.
I might be missing something here, but is this not helpful to Labour? I'm not sure why they are complaining.
A cynic might wonder who this man is and if he really does earn what he says he does.
My reaction when i found out he was actually earning over 80,000 was he should stop whining and count himself lucky , not sure people who earn over that amount bleating over how they’re so hard done by is going to wash with most of the public .
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich is a relative term which means different things to different people.
I thought it meant the same to everyone, meaning someone with a quantum more money than you yourself have?
£83bn - let's say that's true and forget it's a lowball.
From that £23bn is raised on corporations by increasing corporation tax, this will apparently have no negative impact on employment or investment. Sure.
£60bn comes from those earning more than £80k. There are around 1.3m people who earn more than that in the UK. Quite simply there aren't enough people to get that kind of money from. It works out to an average tax rise of over £40,000 per person in that wage bracket.
This manifesto is fantasy. Nothing in it is credible and anyone who chooses to vote for Labour for any reason is part of that fantasyland.
Looking at the detail, the vast majority is supposed to come from corporations - not high earners.
1. Increase tax on 80k+ = 5.4bn. 2. Corporation tax cuts reverse = 23.7bn. 3. Unitary tax of multinationals = 6.3bn. 4. Taxing investment income as other income = 14bn. 5. Financial transactions tax = 8.8bn 6. Tax avoidance and evasion = 6.2bn 7. Corporate tax reliefs review = 4.3bn 8. R&D funding reform = 4.0bn 9. Reverse cuts to inheritance tax and Bank Levy, impose VAT on private school fees, scrap Married Persons Allowance, introduce a second homes tax = 5.2bn 10. Additional tax revenue from fiscal multiplier = 5bn
Most of those changes look sensible to me. Even Boris has implicitly accepted the principle behind increasing corporation tax.
Raising corporation tax won't raise anything like that amount.
It seems to have escaped several people's attention that cutting it down to 19% actually significantly raised revenues.
It all depends where peak of the laffer curve is, and it's probably at around 20% for the UK and its economic structure.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I think it's fair to say that the number of people who have the ability to be medical doctors is somewhat smaller than the number of people capable of teaching (@ydoethur - yes, I know the numbers vary by subject and the quality may
The immediate danger of labour to people on normal wages isn't the tax policy, it's the interest rate rises that will be needed to prop up sterling with such profligate spending on the horizon, or imported inflation via weaker sterling
The Guardian included that in their fact check of the debate:
The "official" fact check lot didn't touch this because judging claims about the future is impossible. But the Guardian gave a good go at telling us that the Tories are just as risky in this regard (clue: they are not).
The fact that people with appopriate qualifications cant get places on medical courses has more to do with bad man power planning by the NHS that there being not enough capable candidates. From memory medical courses remain the most oversubscribed of all degress,
Around 75% of medical school applicants with the right A levels are currently successful. I know, because I do some of the applications!
We do try to weed out the sociopaths and amoral, as well as those lacking in interpersonal skills, so it is not just academic qualifications that matter.
How reflective are interpersonal skills at 17 with those of the same person across their working life? There is definitely a correlation but I can think of plenty who were lacking at 17 but very good later on and some who are vice versa.
Presumably there are parts of medical degrees that cover interactions with patients so these skills can be worked on?
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich means having capital. I have a good income but I am not rich because my wife and I came from poor backgrounds and have had to build things up from very heavily taxed income.
What you are missing is... it doesn't matter a damn how thick a voter is, if people like that guy think Labour are going to screw them, others in a similar position are going to think exactly the same. 80k is good money, but its not huge... and people like him are paying a feck of a lot of tax anyway.
Its the same principle of people hating inheritance tax, even if they are never going to pay any on pay any, they instinctively hate the tax.
People know how much they earn personally though. You can hear the silent doubt of the audience when he says he earns more than 80k and that that doesn't put him in the top 5%.
If Labour can get into an argument on the 80k figure, I think that will help them.
That bloke is an excellent example of rich people hanging out with rich people and therefore thinking he's normal.
Not so silent doubt, the audience heckle him and tell him he is in the top 5%
Fair play I had also missed Bunce muttering that she thought the man was wrong.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year, so I imagine if you earn double that, you are doing okay (not necessarily great, but okay) and if you're earning 3 times that, then maybe being taxed a little more shouldn't bother you.
I think people also ignore what they get for taxes. We get the NHS, education until 18, roads, fire services, police services, the justice system and a hella lot of other things. This isn't the government just knicking your money and pocketing it. It is a case of raising taxes to pay for civic services that benefit everyone, individually and as a community. I can't understand people begrudging paying taxes. When I first started earning enough to pay tax I felt happy to be able to contribute back to a system that raised me.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
Rich as you say is when money is no object
It's been confused by people who are neither well off nor comfortable. Growing up I'd have considered someone well off as rich. Telling people like that you're well off not rich wont hold water, it's not a winnable argument I think because they will still be richer than the person in question. I'm on 32k, and relatives think I'm rich as I get double what they do.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich is a relative term which means different things to different people.
I think rich means "you have a salary I'd love to have, you bastard."
Just a question on Labour’s “free” full fibre broadband. What happens to those who don’t yet have access and therefore have to settle for the lower speed services? Will they all get it for free as well? And do all ISPs therefore just close down on day one?
WE are heavy broadband users and actually pay for two superfast lines into the same house - can we still have 2 or do we all have to share one?
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich is a relative term which means different things to different people.
I thought it meant the same to everyone, meaning someone with a quantum more money than you yourself have?
Perhaps 50% more money than you yourself have might be closer?
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I agree with secondary teachers being underpaid but I don't think it's fair to compare them with GPs. Mentally, I'd say primary school teaching is tougher as primary school children are GENERALLY more hyperactive than teenagers.
Primary school pupils tend not to answer back or be as disruptive
Morning all and on thread I agreed with the suggestion from others that members of the Assembly should have had their salaries stopped when they downed tools.
Meanwhile back in Labour Land, this morning Richard Leonard is launching Scottish Labour's manifesto with the flagship policy of free school meals for all children. Only problem is that even if SLAB wins all 59 Scottish seats and all 632 Mainland GB seats, it cannot deliver the policy. It is a devolved issue so it is for Nicola Sturgeon to deliver! You couldn't make it up!
I remember one of my mates taking a kicking from union thugs for wanting to work back in the 70's
The manifesto talked about removing unnecessary barriers to industrial action. It was unclear what are unnecessary barriers (it might have said restrictions) and what are necessary ones.
The question that needs to be asked is does labour's manifesto appeal to more than 30% of the populace and will it attract conservatives which they need to increase their percentages, or does it scare them and others witless and there is a further move towards the conservatives. Furthermore will those who were toying with the lib dems now feel it is too much of a risk to do anthing but to vote conservative to keep Corbyn out
The polls over this weekend and throughout next week should give an indication
Labour are also going to be subjected to a massive wave of targeted, negative social media. If the Kiwis are as good with this ammunition they've been given as I expect, then this manifesto should result in a Labour fall in the polls over the next two weeks. Perhaps quite a significant one. It is toxic to the "aspirational" vote. It makes taking the risk of lending your vote to the LibDems or Brexit Party far to high to take.
Is 45 Con, 25 Labour, 11 LD too fanciful an outcome?
I am nervous of figures but I would expect it to pan out at 42/30/14 or similar
Can those Conservatives who are quoting the IFS as gospel about Labour's spending plans confirm in advance that they will be quoting them just as assiduously when they comment on the viability of the Conservatives' spending plans? They didn't seem so keen on them last month when they were opining on Brexit.
I remember one of my mates taking a kicking from union thugs for wanting to work back in the 70's
The manifesto talked about removing unnecessary barriers to industrial action. It was unclear what are unnecessary barriers (it might have said restrictions) and what are necessary ones.
Many of the left have found the whole complicated process of balloting workers before going on strike to be an outrage.
I remember one of my mates taking a kicking from union thugs for wanting to work back in the 70's
The manifesto talked about removing unnecessary barriers to industrial action. It was unclear what are unnecessary barriers (it might have said restrictions) and what are necessary ones.
Many of the left have found the whole complicated process of balloting workers before going on strike to be an outrage.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich means having capital. I have a good income but I am not rich because my wife and I came from poor backgrounds and have had to build things up from very heavily taxed income.
That’s a fairer description. Income alone is not sufficient indicator of wealth. A family member has no mortgage, owns several commercial buildings In a portfolio of millions and takes an income from that. The state qualifies him for benefits.
If you own you own home outright, you’re doing very well.
It is quite interesting how many people want to become rich but when they get there insist that rich is the next level up. Why not claim success and say yay Ive made it?
Perhaps the drive needed to get there in the first place requires a continual upward re-setting of goals.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Can those Conservatives who are quoting the IFS as gospel about Labour's spending plans confirm in advance that they will be quoting them just as assiduously when they comment on the viability of the Conservatives' spending plans? They didn't seem so keen on them last month when they were opining on Brexit.
I think they're banking on it saying 'it's not quite as bad as labour' which would be aringing endorsement indeed.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
Rich as you say is when money is no object
It's been confused by people who are neither well off nor comfortable. Growing up I'd have considered someone well off as rich. Telling people like that you're well off not rich wont hold water, it's not a winnable argument I think because they will still be richer than the person in question. I'm on 32k, and relatives think I'm rich as I get double what they do.
I think rich means you have access to considerably amounts of cash not to worry about bills or how to pay for holidays or even dementia care in old age
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich is a relative term which means different things to different people.
I think rich means "you have a salary I'd love to have, you bastard."
Not necessarily. I've been on £100K+ for a few years now through various jobs etc. - I feel reasonably rich, and I'm happy to pay more to make the society around me better, and I know a good few people in a similar position. We can afford it, and it's worth it to make Britain healthier. Sure, we can and in most cases do give to charity, but it's better if it's a collective effort.
It seems to me the narrative to take from Labours manifesto launch is that the only people they trust are those who work for the public sector. It is a real marxists agenda. Take control of means of production through nationalisation and seize control of as much capital as possible. The state will effectively own you and your family..you will be beholden to the state. It is very very scary
Why the fuck was Fiona Bunce not stepping in to point out the member of the public was a total fucking Moron?
That was absolutely excruciating to watch.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
Blimey, Burgon is correct here.
Burgon flubed hard here. He should have have the stats to hand to point out the median wage is 22 grand and the mean around 30 grand.
But I have a lot of sympathy in the face of such idiocy. The women next to the questioner goig "absolute rubbish" when Burgon said he only earned 40 grand as a solicitor was the shit cherry on top of the poo cake.
What you are missing is... it doesn't matter a damn how thick a voter is, if people like that guy think Labour are going to screw them, others in a similar position are going to think exactly the same. 80k is good money, but its not huge... and people like him are paying a feck of a lot of tax anyway.
Its the same principle of people hating inheritance tax, even if they are never going to pay any on pay any, they instinctively hate the tax.
Eighty grand is fucking huge mate.
It isn't in London or the south east.
If you're paying for full time childcare, an expensive season ticket and a big mortgage you are "self-sustaining" but you have many financial commitments.
"After Labour puts up your taxes, are you sure you can still afford your mortgage?"
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year, so I imagine if you earn double that, you are doing okay (not necessarily great, but okay) and if you're earning 3 times that, then maybe being taxed a little more shouldn't bother you.
I think people also ignore what they get for taxes. We get the NHS, education until 18, roads, fire services, police services, the justice system and a hella lot of other things. This isn't the government just knicking your money and pocketing it. It is a case of raising taxes to pay for civic services that benefit everyone, individually and as a community. I can't understand people begrudging paying taxes. When I first started earning enough to pay tax I felt happy to be able to contribute back to a system that raised me.
"Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year"
That's utter nonsense.
The median household disposable income is £29,400. That's disposable.
Just a question on Labour’s “free” full fibre broadband. What happens to those who don’t yet have access and therefore have to settle for the lower speed services? Will they all get it for free as well? And do all ISPs therefore just close down on day one?
WE are heavy broadband users and actually pay for two superfast lines into the same house - can we still have 2 or do we all have to share one?
It takes talent, cunning and skill to accurately predict future demand for technology. What’s remarkable over the last decade is just how good a job isps with and without (llu) openreach have done in terms of improving capacity and speed. The former actually more important than the latter.
Can those Conservatives who are quoting the IFS as gospel about Labour's spending plans confirm in advance that they will be quoting them just as assiduously when they comment on the viability of the Conservatives' spending plans? They didn't seem so keen on them last month when they were opining on Brexit.
It is the commentators and media who are quoting the IFS this morning to be fair
Can those Conservatives who are quoting the IFS as gospel about Labour's spending plans confirm in advance that they will be quoting them just as assiduously when they comment on the viability of the Conservatives' spending plans? They didn't seem so keen on them last month when they were opining on Brexit.
I think they're banking on it saying 'it's not quite as bad as labour' which would be aringing endorsement indeed.
Given that the IFS found last month that a Corbyn government would be better than a no-deal Brexit, that's not a given.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich means having capital. I have a good income but I am not rich because my wife and I came from poor backgrounds and have had to build things up from very heavily taxed income.
That’s a fairer description. Income alone is not sufficient indicator of wealth. A family member has no mortgage, owns several commercial buildings In a portfolio of millions and takes an income from that. The state qualifies him for benefits.
If you own you own home outright, you’re doing very well.
Thst was the big thing for people I knew. Those without mortgages to pay were very comfortable even if income was the same as the poorer.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
Rich as you say is when money is no object
It's been confused by people who are neither well off nor comfortable. Growing up I'd have considered someone well off as rich. Telling people like that you're well off not rich wont hold water, it's not a winnable argument I think because they will still be richer than the person in question. I'm on 32k, and relatives think I'm rich as I get double what they do.
I think rich means have access to considerably amounts of cash not to worry about bills or how to pay for holidays or even dementia care in old age
The problem in our country is that for too many having reliable food, shelter and a future worth living for are riches beyond their dreams.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich means having capital. I have a good income but I am not rich because my wife and I came from poor backgrounds and have had to build things up from very heavily taxed income.
That’s a fairer description. Income alone is not sufficient indicator of wealth. A family member has no mortgage, owns several commercial buildings In a portfolio of millions and takes an income from that. The state qualifies him for benefits.
If you own you own home outright, you’re doing very well.
Thst was the big thing for people I knew. Those without mortgages to pay were very comfortable even if income was the same as the poorer.
When you bought your house can be more important in determining disposable income than what you earn.
£83bn - let's say that's true and forget it's a lowball.
From that £23bn is raised on corporations by increasing corporation tax, this will apparently have no negative impact on employment or investment. Sure.
£60bn comes from those earning more than £80k. There are around 1.3m people who earn more than that in the UK. Quite simply there aren't enough people to get that kind of money from. It works out to an average tax rise of over £40,000 per person in that wage bracket.
This manifesto is fantasy. Nothing in it is credible and anyone who chooses to vote for Labour for any reason is part of that fantasyland.
Looking at the detail, the vast majority is supposed to come from corporations - not high earners.
1. Increase tax on 80k+ = 5.4bn. 2. Corporation tax cuts reverse = 23.7bn. 3. Unitary tax of multinationals = 6.3bn. 4. Taxing investment income as other income = 14bn. 5. Financial transactions tax = 8.8bn 6. Tax avoidance and evasion = 6.2bn 7. Corporate tax reliefs review = 4.3bn 8. R&D funding reform = 4.0bn 9. Reverse cuts to inheritance tax and Bank Levy, impose VAT on private school fees, scrap Married Persons Allowance, introduce a second homes tax = 5.2bn 10. Additional tax revenue from fiscal multiplier = 5bn
Most of those changes look sensible to me. Even Boris has implicitly accepted the principle behind increasing corporation tax.
On what basis do you say these changes "look sensible". Are you saying that you believe that they've been calculated correctly or that they form the basis for a credible fiscal policy? And what authority do you have to make and express such judgments?
And putting all that aside, your statement that "the vast majority is supposed to come from corporations" is palpably incorrect even using the numbers you've cited. Putting aside the fact that, ultimately, many of the additional corporate costs will filter through to individuals anyway, items 1, 4, 6 and 9 add up to over £30bn. Add in the high degree of likelihood that the corporate taxes won't bring in as much as expected (£8.8bn from a financial transactions tax when just by picking up the phone to a broker in Dublin, Amsterdam or New York you could perform the same transaction without tax if companies move their listings as they undoubtedly would?) and individuals are very directly going to be picking up most of this.
It's a recipe for capital fleeing the country, a reduction - not an increase - in tax revenue and the public services we can afford to enjoy, and mass unemployment as multinational and service companies move all or some of their activities offshore. Beware of what you wish for.
I don't know if it is apochryphal, but you hear of entire developments in London that are sold exclusively to China off plan. And then are two-thirds unoccupied. Great for the building trades, not so much for everybody else.
I remember one of my mates taking a kicking from union thugs for wanting to work back in the 70's
The manifesto talked about removing unnecessary barriers to industrial action. It was unclear what are unnecessary barriers (it might have said restrictions) and what are necessary ones.
Many of the left have found the whole complicated process of balloting workers before going on strike to be an outrage.
Only as they are Marxist anarchists
Anarchists are NOT Marxists, as anyone who's read up on the Spanish Civil War will tell you...
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich means having capital. I have a good income but I am not rich because my wife and I came from poor backgrounds and have had to build things up from very heavily taxed income.
That’s a fairer description. Income alone is not sufficient indicator of wealth. A family member has no mortgage, owns several commercial buildings In a portfolio of millions and takes an income from that. The state qualifies him for benefits.
If you own you own home outright, you’re doing very well.
Capital also allows far more flexibility in our bizarre tax system. A wealthy friend pays lump sums into his pension to avoid HRT. It’s frankly a bit annoying.
The definition of wealth is always arbitrary and depends on life experience and where you live. I have always had the impression that in e.g. London the only thing which people judge someone on is how much s/he earns and whether s/he lives in inner or outer London and owns his/her own home.
I live in a largish house with a modest mortgage in the country and a town house mortgage free with tenants. I cannot "eat" or heat myself with pictures and antique furniture and am dependent on benefits to survive. When my oil ran out on 14th February I had to sit out the rest of winter without heating and just wore an extra jumper because I couldn't afford to refill the oil tank.
I suspect 99% of the population would consider me "wealthy" because dead, my estate would pay a 6 figure sum in inheritance tax but alive my annual income isn't large enough to reach the limit of the personal allowance and pay income tax. Many of you reading this will earn more in a month than I have to live on for a year.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year, so I imagine if you earn double that, you are doing okay (not necessarily great, but okay) and if you're earning 3 times that, then maybe being taxed a little more shouldn't bother you.
I think people also ignore what they get for taxes. We get the NHS, education until 18, roads, fire services, police services, the justice system and a hella lot of other things. This isn't the government just knicking your money and pocketing it. It is a case of raising taxes to pay for civic services that benefit everyone, individually and as a community. I can't understand people begrudging paying taxes. When I first started earning enough to pay tax I felt happy to be able to contribute back to a system that raised me.
"Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year"
That's utter nonsense.
The median household disposable income is £29,400. That's disposable.
HMRC table (albeit for two years ago) puts the 50th centile at 23k pre-tax and 21k post tax. That's all taxpayers, so I guess brought down by non-working pensioners if the figures above are for workers. My main take-out would be that there are several similar but not identical competing data sets.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I think it's fair to say that the number of people who have the ability to be medical doctors is somewhat smaller than the number of people capable of teaching (@ydoethur - yes, I know the numbers vary by subject and the quality may vary a lot too).
However, the number of people wanting to be doctors is high. A friend of mine got 4 As in his AS Levels in maths, chemistry, biology and physics and applied to medical schools. Not one of the four he applied to gave him an interview.
Therefore, I think as an employer, the government should have a lot more bargaining power with doctors. I'd be keen to tie medical students to the NHS - if you leave, you repay your loan on commercial terms.
The immediate danger of labour to people on normal wages isn't the tax policy, it's the interest rate rises that will be needed to prop up sterling with such profligate spending on the horizon, or imported inflation via weaker sterling
The Guardian included that in their fact check of the debate:
The "official" fact check lot didn't touch this because judging claims about the future is impossible. But the Guardian gave a good go at telling us that the Tories are just as risky in this regard (clue: they are not).
The fact that people with appopriate qualifications cant get places on medical courses has more to do with bad man power planning by the NHS that there being not enough capable candidates. From memory medical courses remain the most oversubscribed of all degress,
When doing university applications we treat applying for medicine as an equivalent difficulty to applying to Oxbridge.
Can those Conservatives who are quoting the IFS as gospel about Labour's spending plans confirm in advance that they will be quoting them just as assiduously when they comment on the viability of the Conservatives' spending plans? They didn't seem so keen on them last month when they were opining on Brexit.
The ifs get many of their social predictions wrong because they underestimate behavioural change. Take any predictions into the future with a pinch of salt.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year, so I imagine if you earn double that, you are doing okay (not necessarily great, but okay) and if you're earning 3 times that, then maybe being taxed a little more shouldn't bother you.
I think people also ignore what they get for taxes. We get the NHS, education until 18, roads, fire services, police services, the justice system and a hella lot of other things. This isn't the government just knicking your money and pocketing it. It is a case of raising taxes to pay for civic services that benefit everyone, individually and as a community. I can't understand people begrudging paying taxes. When I first started earning enough to pay tax I felt happy to be able to contribute back to a system that raised me.
"Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year"
That's utter nonsense.
The median household disposable income is £29,400. That's disposable.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
Rich as you say is when money is no object
"Comfortably off" is a just a euphemism used by people who are rich but feel bad about it or wish they were richer. I don't view rich as a pejorative term - it is simply an adjective to describe people who have more than enough money to enjoy a decent standard of living. I am rich. I know people whose wealth is hundreds of times higher than mine, but that doesn't mean I am not rich. Also, my experience of rich people is that money never stops being an object for them. That's usually why they are rich!
The definition of wealth is always arbitrary and depends on life experience and where you live. I have always had the impression that in e.g. London the only thing which people judge someone on is how much s/he earns and whether s/he lives in inner or outer London and owns his/her own home.
I live in a largish house with a modest mortgage in the country and a town house mortgage free with tenants. I cannot "eat" or heat myself with pictures and antique furniture and am dependent on benefits to survive. When my oil ran out on 14th February I had to sit out the rest of winter without heating and just wore an extra jumper because I couldn't afford to refill the oil tank.
I suspect 99% of the population would consider me "wealthy" because dead, my estate would pay a 6 figure sum in inheritance tax but alive my annual income isn't large enough to reach the limit of the personal allowance and pay income tax. Many of you reading this will earn more in a month than I have to live on for a year.
That is your choice though, if your net worth is as described, you could sell your houses, invest it in a mix of equities and bonds and live very comfortably.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
There is a saying, ‘takes one to know one.’
This is not true of morons, who are simply too thick to recognise each other.
You're not allowed to call the audience moronic as a politician even if it's true.
Anyway if that chap is a Doctor I'm glad he's not mine. I doubt he has any idea of how Bayes works for instance with that piss poor grasp of statistics
I think we live in a great country. A place where a innumerate and argumentative man who cannot even choose the correct sized clothes, living in a provincial town can earn £80 000 per year.
The annoying thing about that would be however that despite all that he earns more than me.
Secondary school teachers are underpaid compared to GPs I think.
I agree with secondary teachers being underpaid but I don't think it's fair to compare them with GPs. Mentally, I'd say primary school teaching is tougher as primary school children are GENERALLY more hyperactive than teenagers.
While teaching is not as difficult as being a GP (very few of us bury our mistakes and nobody wants me to be on duty Christmas morning), the problem is finding people prepared to do it. This is particularly true of some subjects such as Physics and computing.
Also, I think one of the main points everyone is missing - on one hand corporations are going to see their taxes go up by £23bn plus an additional £10bn in other stuff and on the other they will see the minimum wage go up to £10/h.
There are three ways to square that circle -
1. The company chooses lesser profit 2. The company cuts back on investment 3. The company cuts jobs
Of the three which of which most likely and which is least likely? I wonder.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year, so I imagine if you earn double that, you are doing okay (not necessarily great, but okay) and if you're earning 3 times that, then maybe being taxed a little more shouldn't bother you.
I think people also ignore what they get for taxes. We get the NHS, education until 18, roads, fire services, police services, the justice system and a hella lot of other things. This isn't the government just knicking your money and pocketing it. It is a case of raising taxes to pay for civic services that benefit everyone, individually and as a community. I can't understand people begrudging paying taxes. When I first started earning enough to pay tax I felt happy to be able to contribute back to a system that raised me.
I think what people resent is the top 0.1% both domestically and globally, those who earn in the high hundred of thousands/low millions and have millions in capital, who pay the square root of bugger all.
But we can’t/won’t go after them so instead it’s people who’ve worked hard to get where there are and rely entirely upon salary for income in the 60-120k bracket (doctors, medical consultants, headteachers and small businessmen) who get hammered.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year, so I imagine if you earn double that, you are doing okay (not necessarily great, but okay) and if you're earning 3 times that, then maybe being taxed a little more shouldn't bother you.
I think people also ignore what they get for taxes. We get the NHS, education until 18, roads, fire services, police services, the justice system and a hella lot of other things. This isn't the government just knicking your money and pocketing it. It is a case of raising taxes to pay for civic services that benefit everyone, individually and as a community. I can't understand people begrudging paying taxes. When I first started earning enough to pay tax I felt happy to be able to contribute back to a system that raised me.
"Half of households in the country earn less than £30k a year"
That's utter nonsense.
The median household disposable income is £29,400. That's disposable.
I can't see anything from Labour saying the £80k+ figure is for household income, though, so it still wouldn't hit most people?
Median household income, after tax, national insurance and council tax, is £29,400. Median household earnings would be much more, but then again not all households have earners as such.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
Rich as you say is when money is no object
It's been confused by people who are neither well off nor comfortable. Growing up I'd have considered someone well off as rich. Telling people like that you're well off not rich wont hold water, it's not a winnable argument I think because they will still be richer than the person in question. I'm on 32k, and relatives think I'm rich as I get double what they do.
I think rich means have access to considerably amounts of cash not to worry about bills or how to pay for holidays or even dementia care in old age
The problem in our country is that for too many having reliable food, shelter and a future worth living for are riches beyond their dreams.
That’s nonsense. It’s the tosh that labour have talked themselves into, an imagined society between the billionaires and the have nots. It’s just not true for virtually everyone reliable food shelter and a future are a stable given. There’s certainly reform needed in the private rental market to give tenants much more stability. But life is good for the vast many.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Rich is a relative term which means different things to different people.
I think rich means "you have a salary I'd love to have, you bastard."
Not necessarily. I've been on £100K+ for a few years now through various jobs etc. - I feel reasonably rich, and I'm happy to pay more to make the society around me better, and I know a good few people in a similar position. We can afford it, and it's worth it to make Britain healthier. Sure, we can and in most cases do give to charity, but it's better if it's a collective effort.
You’re a deceptive and highly manipulative ideologue who cloaks your shenanigans in politeness.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
Rich as you say is when money is no object
"Comfortably off" is a just a euphemism used by people who are rich but feel bad about it or wish they were richer. I don't view rich as a pejorative term - it is simply an adjective to describe people who have more than enough money to enjoy a decent standard of living. I am rich. I know people whose wealth is hundreds of times higher than mine, but that doesn't mean I am not rich. Also, my experience of rich people is that money never stops being an object for them. That's usually why they are rich!
I mean, I feel comfortably off earning ~£17k pa after tax. Granted, I live alone and have no dependants, but I can go out regularly, have meals, do theatre etc.
I don't run a car (public transport only for me) and I have lower rent than average I assume, but still...
Can those Conservatives who are quoting the IFS as gospel about Labour's spending plans confirm in advance that they will be quoting them just as assiduously when they comment on the viability of the Conservatives' spending plans? They didn't seem so keen on them last month when they were opining on Brexit.
I think they're banking on it saying 'it's not quite as bad as labour' which would be aringing endorsement indeed.
Given that the IFS found last month that a Corbyn government would be better than a no-deal Brexit, that's not a given.
The IFS had the mother of all brainfarts that day.
These are arbitrary numbers, it depends where you live, if you have kids, whether your partner is working etc. In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
You are comfortably off, you are not rich.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
That is a valid point. Somehow rich has become confused with comfortably off
Rich as you say is when money is no object
It's been confused by people who are neither well off nor comfortable. Growing up I'd have considered someone well off as rich. Telling people like that you're well off not rich wont hold water, it's not a winnable argument I think because they will still be richer than the person in question. I'm on 32k, and relatives think I'm rich as I get double what they do.
I think rich means have access to considerably amounts of cash not to worry about bills or how to pay for holidays or even dementia care in old age
The problem in our country is that for too many having reliable food, shelter and a future worth living for are riches beyond their dreams.
That’s nonsense. It’s the tosh that labour have talked themselves into, an imagined society between the billionaires and the have nots. It’s just not true for virtually everyone reliable food shelter and a future are a stable given. There’s certainly reform needed in the private rental market to give tenants much more stability. But life is good for the vast many.
My village has a food bank and rough sleepers now, are people doing that for fun?
Why the fuck was Fiona Bunce not stepping in to point out the member of the public was a total fucking Moron?
That was absolutely excruciating to watch.
Why couldn't Burgon step in the o point out he was a moron.
Blimey, Burgon is correct here.
Burgon flubed hard here. He should have have the stats to hand to point out the median wage is 22 grand and the mean around 30 grand.
But I have a lot of sympathy in the face of such idiocy. The women next to the questioner goig "absolute rubbish" when Burgon said he only earned 40 grand as a solicitor was the shit cherry on top of the poo cake.
What you are missing is... it doesn't matter a damn how thick a voter is, if people like that guy think Labour are going to screw them, others in a similar position are going to think exactly the same. 80k is good money, but its not huge... and people like him are paying a feck of a lot of tax anyway.
Its the same principle of people hating inheritance tax, even if they are never going to pay any on pay any, they instinctively hate the tax.
Eighty grand is fucking huge mate.
It isn't in London or the south east.
If you're paying for full time childcare, an expensive season ticket and a big mortgage you are "self-sustaining" but you have many financial commitments.
"After Labour puts up your taxes, are you sure you can still afford your mortgage?"
That should do it.
We’d be snookered.
I earn over £80k and pay high childcare fees and commuting costs. And I don’t believe for a second he’d stop at ‘just’ an extra 5% tax on me.
Comments
However, the number of people wanting to be doctors is high. A friend of mine got 4 As in his AS Levels in maths, chemistry, biology and physics and applied to medical schools. Not one of the four he applied to gave him an interview.
Therefore, I think as an employer, the government should have a lot more bargaining power with doctors. I'd be keen to tie medical students to the NHS - if you leave, you repay your loan on commercial terms. The Guardian included that in their fact check of the debate:
https://tinyurl.com/sbbmcek
The "official" fact check lot didn't touch this because judging claims about the future is impossible. But the Guardian gave a good go at telling us that the Tories are just as risky in this regard (clue: they are not).
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1197651546940608514?s=19
*Currently all EEA qualifications are automatically recognised for example, but Indian Doctors have to take exams which require a year of study and significant funds.
A cynic might wonder who this man is and if he really does earn what he says he does.
https://twitter.com/ericbradner/status/1197686251819810816
To someone protesting deportations he says: You should vote for Trump.
In my view if your family income allows you to buy a 4 bedroom house in the catchment area for a good state secondary school in your local housing market with an 80% LTV repayment mortgage and service it at 4% interest rates and leaves enough money over to go on a long haul family holiday once a year then you are rich. In London that means earning amounts of money that, if you live in Hartlepool, will look ridiculous.
A big issue with the Labour plan in practical terms is even if what they propose is the right level of government spending, to make that in one jump is incredibly unlikely to result in efficient use of the additional spending as govt attention will be spread around and the economy would be in a massive state of flux making allocation decsions harder.
And if you're looking to increase productivity then putting up major tax increases on R&D and Investment seems a bizarre place to start.
https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/economy/global-economy-watch/prioritise-public-infrastructure-investments.html
That does not mean all infrastructure investment raises productivity, of course some of it can be wasteful. I do not support Labours proposals as they are trying to do far too much all in one go but more investment in our infrastructure is a good starting place.
We do try to weed out the sociopaths and amoral, as well as those lacking in interpersonal skills, so it is not just academic qualifications that matter.
Rich means money is no object. Ever.
Is 45 Con, 25 Labour, 11 LD too fanciful an outcome?
If you're paying for full time childcare, an expensive season ticket and a big mortgage you are "self-sustaining" but you have many financial commitments.
Labour, especially under Corbyn, just wants to spend, spend, spend.
Rich as you say is when money is no object
https://order-order.com/2019/11/22/labours-plan-make-britain-worst-place-business-g7/
I remember one of my mates taking a kicking from union thugs for wanting to work back in the 70's
It seems to have escaped several people's attention that cutting it down to 19% actually significantly raised revenues.
It all depends where peak of the laffer curve is, and it's probably at around 20% for the UK and its economic structure.
Presumably there are parts of medical degrees that cover interactions with patients so these skills can be worked on?
I think people also ignore what they get for taxes. We get the NHS, education until 18, roads, fire services, police services, the justice system and a hella lot of other things. This isn't the government just knicking your money and pocketing it. It is a case of raising taxes to pay for civic services that benefit everyone, individually and as a community. I can't understand people begrudging paying taxes. When I first started earning enough to pay tax I felt happy to be able to contribute back to a system that raised me.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50511007
Meanwhile back in Labour Land, this morning Richard Leonard is launching Scottish Labour's manifesto with the flagship policy of free school meals for all children. Only problem is that even if SLAB wins all 59 Scottish seats and all 632 Mainland GB seats, it cannot deliver the policy. It is a devolved issue so it is for Nicola Sturgeon to deliver! You couldn't make it up!
If you own you own home outright, you’re doing very well.
Perhaps the drive needed to get there in the first place requires a continual upward re-setting of goals.
Two people earning 60k are significantly better off than one earning £120k supporting a disabled or ill spouse.
It is a real marxists agenda.
Take control of means of production through nationalisation and seize control of as much capital as possible.
The state will effectively own you and your family..you will be beholden to the state.
It is very very scary
That should do it.
That's utter nonsense.
The median household disposable income is £29,400. That's disposable.
And putting all that aside, your statement that "the vast majority is supposed to come from corporations" is palpably incorrect even using the numbers you've cited. Putting aside the fact that, ultimately, many of the additional corporate costs will filter through to individuals anyway, items 1, 4, 6 and 9 add up to over £30bn. Add in the high degree of likelihood that the corporate taxes won't bring in as much as expected (£8.8bn from a financial transactions tax when just by picking up the phone to a broker in Dublin, Amsterdam or New York you could perform the same transaction without tax if companies move their listings as they undoubtedly would?) and individuals are very directly going to be picking up most of this.
It's a recipe for capital fleeing the country, a reduction - not an increase - in tax revenue and the public services we can afford to enjoy, and mass unemployment as multinational and service companies move all or some of their activities offshore. Beware of what you wish for.
I live in a largish house with a modest mortgage in the country and a town house mortgage free with tenants. I cannot "eat" or heat myself with pictures and antique furniture and am dependent on benefits to survive. When my oil ran out on 14th February I had to sit out the rest of winter without heating and just wore an extra jumper because I couldn't afford to refill the oil tank.
I suspect 99% of the population would consider me "wealthy" because dead, my estate would pay a 6 figure sum in inheritance tax but alive my annual income isn't large enough to reach the limit of the personal allowance and pay income tax. Many of you reading this will earn more in a month than I have to live on for a year.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/782765/NS_Table_3_1a_1617.xlsx
So the median individual income seems to be just below £30k a year? (https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/average-uk-salary) so average household income is closer to £60k?
I can't see anything from Labour saying the £80k+ figure is for household income, though, so it still wouldn't hit most people?
Also, my experience of rich people is that money never stops being an object for them. That's usually why they are rich!
"One being The I.R.A affected Arlene’s family during “The Troubles”.
They shot and almost killed her father. 'Affected' seems to be a rather strange way to describe that.
There are three ways to square that circle -
1. The company chooses lesser profit
2. The company cuts back on investment
3. The company cuts jobs
Of the three which of which most likely and which is least likely? I wonder.
But we can’t/won’t go after them so instead it’s people who’ve worked hard to get where there are and rely entirely upon salary for income in the 60-120k bracket (doctors, medical consultants, headteachers and small businessmen) who get hammered.
If you have less than a year, you’re probably not rich.
So, we ignore what you say.
I don't run a car (public transport only for me) and I have lower rent than average I assume, but still...
The IFS had the mother of all brainfarts that day.
I earn over £80k and pay high childcare fees and commuting costs. And I don’t believe for a second he’d stop at ‘just’ an extra 5% tax on me.
Corbyn would price us out of our family home.