The excellent long article in the NS on 10 big reasons for 20 years of Labour decline can be helpfully distilled in chronological order for those without time to read it:
1) 2001 GE turnout 2) Iraq 3) 2004 Romanians etc FOM 4) 2007 No GE 5) 2008 Crash 6) 2010 Clegg turns Tory 7) 2010 The wrong brother 8) 2015 SNP 9) 2017 etc Corbyn delusion 10) 2016 (and continuing ad infinitum) Brexit
That’s a great read. ‘Seeking converts (in the 1990’s) not hunting traitors (today)’ is a really well thought out comment on how labours approach has changed.
Quite. I vote Labour in local elections for people I know and respect, but won't vote for them in a GE until their members as a whole are plainly opposed to and absolutely hostile to anti Semites and don't speak of 'Tory scum' 'Never kissed a Tory' and all that nonsense.
And they need to have a coherent post-Brexit policy too. This is a generation long enterprise. Fudge and silence won't do.
I vote labour at a national level as an endorsement of my local MP who I have a lot of time for. Many labour MPs in the North East are just hopeless though. I’d find it hard to vote for a fair few of them. I was brought up to believe the Tories were not for the working class but it’s hard to see what labour is for these days and what it offers working class communities and people apart from demonisation.
I vote locally for whoever I think will do the best job for the ward. Last time out it was Tory and Indy.
Labours online supporters with all this Tory scum, never kissed a Tory stuff I agree with you. It’s nonsense. Abusing people for voting the wrong way and wishing communities who voted Brexit suffer mass unemployment and hardship then wondering why they won’t vote labour is just madness.
You’re right, labour needs a coherent position on Brexit. Blair has started to articulate one. But labour is miles away from that or from offering anything other than not being the Tories.
Oh no, coherence and honesty is the last thing anyone needs on Brexit.
Remember: There is a small but solid and lead for "the 2016 vote was a mistake." Overall, embracing it would do more harm than good for Labour. There's a widespread sense that it's not going well. (Polling data here: https://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/) There is a chunky group who loudly fear Breturn, and a small (but loud) group who would rejoin tomorrow.
So what Starmer needs to do is simple, but dishonest.
1 Blame the problems on Johnson's Brexit. The problem wasn't with the public, it was with BoJo.
2 Suggest super-reasonable co-operation to make trading more workable. The TCA framework allows for this. These will be mostly on the EU's terms, but that doesn't need to be said. Concentrate on the benefits for British people, so that the government look like the idealogues.
3 Don't talk about the endpoint. The endpoint is obvious, which is why Johnson fears it. But as a country, we're not ready for it yet. If you must, talk about keeping options open for future generations.
Trouble is, that requires Starmer to be dishonest, and hard FBPEers to be patient. Neither of which is likely. Which will make it all more painful than it needs to be.
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
Does it need sorting? I’m not saying the current set up is fair, indeed, what’s proposed may be better for people like me in Surrey.
But I’ve always thought that the biggest danger for social care is a house price crash, which would result in the state having to fund more of the care.
This has always been an issue that the media likes to talk about, but it never strikes me as being a pressing concern of ordinary people.
Only because it affects people for certain periods of our lives, and some of us not at all. And many people cannot afford to do anything about it (e.g. to take out annuities) anyway.
I listened to BBC interviewing a cross section of the public on the NI rise and there was virtual unanimity that is was the right thing to do, which may have surprised some
If I was the chancellor I would announce the 1% NI rise and apply NI to all pensioners who are in work
Additionally, I would at the same time announce the end of the triple lock with a rise of circa 3% for 2022
And I would leave the UC uplift of £20 in place, it is the right thing to do
And it would be amusing to see the daily mail throw all its toys out with the pram in fury
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
Does it need sorting? I’m not saying the current set up is fair, indeed, what’s proposed may be better for people like me in Surrey.
But I’ve always thought that the biggest danger for social care is a house price crash, which would result in the state having to fund more of the care.
This has always been an issue that the media likes to talk about, but it never strikes me as being a pressing concern of ordinary people.
Only because it affects people for certain periods of our lives, and some of us not at all. And many people cannot afford to do anything about it (e.g. to take out annuities) anyway.
But the media talk as though the social care sector is going to collapse. They’re not interviewing angry 50 somethings who feel they’ve missed out on their inheritance (which is what this is really about).
I actually thought what Theresa May proposed in 2017 was quite sensible, but the reaction showed just how illogical the discourse is.
I voted remain and am happy to accept the vote of the referendum
I watched GB news for 48 hours and have not watched it since and could not care less about Andrew Neil
Furthermore , my membership of the conservative party has now lapsed and I am a free political spirit
Welcome out of the dark! Joking, but will be interesting to see where your thoughts take you. Could you imagine voting Labour again, and what would Starmer need to do/say to peersuade you?
I voted for Blair twice but at present Starmer has simply had nothing to say and I have no idea what todays labour party stands for and I suspect that is a widely held view
Agreed Starmer has no clear vision and there are significant doubts about the LAB 'team' as a whole. Sort the policies, clear out the rubbish and then LAB may be considered suitable for reasonable centre moderates like me! 👍
Labour seems to have very little talent at the top table. People talk, rightly, about the calibre of the cabinet but labour, the government in waiting, has very little to offer too.
If starmer stood down who would seriously do a better job or engage with the country ?
Labour just seems to be a disparate group of single issue obsessives under one overarching umbrella. No cohesive vision.
WASHINGTON — Top federal health officials have told the White House to scale back a plan to offer coronavirus booster shots to the general public this month, saying that regulators need more time to collect and review all the necessary data, according to people familiar with the discussion.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned the White House on Thursday that their agencies may be able to determine in the coming weeks whether to recommend boosters only for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — and possibly just some of them to start.
As I said yesterday there is some doubt as to the value of boosters - given too soon they may well be useless. Nor is it clear that all vaccines are waning at the same pace and how much if any protection is being lost. But heigh ho this site is full of 'vaxperts' who keep ,pretending otherwise...
I voted remain and am happy to accept the vote of the referendum
I watched GB news for 48 hours and have not watched it since and could not care less about Andrew Neil
Furthermore , my membership of the conservative party has now lapsed and I am a free political spirit
Welcome out of the dark! Joking, but will be interesting to see where your thoughts take you. Could you imagine voting Labour again, and what would Starmer need to do/say to peersuade you?
I voted for Blair twice but at present Starmer has simply had nothing to say and I have no idea what todays labour party stands for and I suspect that is a widely held view
I vote labour in general elections but I couldn’t agree more.
I don’t know what labour stands for or offers to me, my community or the country. Not being the Tories isn’t enough. Labour don’t deserve my vote at the moment. Nationally they seem to just have contempt for communities like mine.
I really don't like what the Tories (seem to) stand for.
I think the planned NI rise will cost those on £40k £300 a year, and those on £50k £500 a year more. It will hit more than 25 million workers. And it may also do this just as inflation bites, tax thresholds are frozen, and commuting costs start to kick back in again.
We are facing a real-terms squeeze in incomes and the standard of living.
It will not be popular, despite what polling may currently suggest, and so now's the time to lay Dishy Rishi.
It's completely regressive, leaves older workers off scot free; hits strivers hard. And it won't actually solve anything. Every diversity post in the NHS needs scrapping 1st
I'd have more respect for a party that taxed asset wealth, which is hideously undertaxed, rather than progressively squeezing the incomes of those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to get on.
I mean, does the government realise that if you're a graduate in your 20s these days you effectively pay 41% tax (NI+IT+SL) *plus* at least 5% of your pension, and that this will last for virtually all of your working life? That house prices are high and that getting a deposit together is really hard work? That childcare costs are extortionate? That transport and energy costs keep inflating ahead of RPI each year too?
No, because the oldies get all the baubles and are entirely shameless about it.
Young people voted Conservative in 1979 because they thought it would help them get on. I see virtually no reason for them to vote Conservative today and, lo and behold, they don't.
I wonder if we'll see a geographic-generational shift in voting patterns with the Conservatives steadily becoming more Midland and North orientated where housing is still affordable and taxes on income relatively lower.
While simultaneously declining in the Waitrose-nimby belt.
If so there will come a tipping point when they switch to supporting taxes on expensive property.
I voted remain and am happy to accept the vote of the referendum
I watched GB news for 48 hours and have not watched it since and could not care less about Andrew Neil
Furthermore , my membership of the conservative party has now lapsed and I am a free political spirit
Welcome out of the dark! Joking, but will be interesting to see where your thoughts take you. Could you imagine voting Labour again, and what would Starmer need to do/say to peersuade you?
I voted for Blair twice but at present Starmer has simply had nothing to say and I have no idea what todays labour party stands for and I suspect that is a widely held view
I vote labour in general elections but I couldn’t agree more.
I don’t know what labour stands for or offers to me, my community or the country. Not being the Tories isn’t enough. Labour don’t deserve my vote at the moment. Nationally they seem to just have contempt for communities like mine.
I really don't like what the Tories (seem to) stand for.
I have never voted Tory. But I don’t think they are all bad but this Tory govt seems to be more big state and interventionist than others
However, Aside from not being the Tories what do labour stand for. What will they do for communities like mine ? At least the Tories talk about levelling up and seem to do things on it.
I voted remain and am happy to accept the vote of the referendum
I watched GB news for 48 hours and have not watched it since and could not care less about Andrew Neil
Furthermore , my membership of the conservative party has now lapsed and I am a free political spirit
Welcome out of the dark! Joking, but will be interesting to see where your thoughts take you. Could you imagine voting Labour again, and what would Starmer need to do/say to peersuade you?
I voted for Blair twice but at present Starmer has simply had nothing to say and I have no idea what todays labour party stands for and I suspect that is a widely held view
Agreed Starmer has no clear vision and there are significant doubts about the LAB 'team' as a whole. Sort the policies, clear out the rubbish and then LAB may be considered suitable for reasonable centre moderates like me! 👍
Labour seems to have very little talent at the top table. People talk, rightly, about the calibre of the cabinet but labour, the government in waiting, has very little to offer too.
If starmer stood down who would seriously do a better job or engage with the country ?
Labour just seems to be a disparate group of single issue obsessives under one overarching umbrella. No cohesive vision.
Luke Akehurst @lukeakehurst · 17h Its simply absurd to expect Labour to tolerate, let alone fund, a youth section that is openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests or indulging the promotion of policy stances that embarrass the party or are antithetical to our values
adrian mcmenamin @adrianmcmenamin Replying to @lukeakehurst and @charleswhite3 Absolutely - there is difference between having ideas that push boundaries or running campaigns that raise eyebrows and being a magnet for the tiny number of Stalin-fanciers aged under 26
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
Let the old gits pay for it.
It's also interesting to note that this policy isn't going to simply be accepted. It's got life long Tory voters cutting up their membership cards. As I said yesterday, Theresa May lost because the average age of becoming a Tory voters went up to 55, Boris won a majority by bringing it back down to 39. He can't lose working age people from his electoral coalition because the majority goes with them. The Tory reliance on old wankers for votes will result in Labour winning 50%+ working age voters and 300+ seats.
WASHINGTON — Top federal health officials have told the White House to scale back a plan to offer coronavirus booster shots to the general public this month, saying that regulators need more time to collect and review all the necessary data, according to people familiar with the discussion.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned the White House on Thursday that their agencies may be able to determine in the coming weeks whether to recommend boosters only for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — and possibly just some of them to start.
As I said yesterday there is some doubt as to the value of boosters - given too soon they may well be useless. Nor is it clear that all vaccines are waning at the same pace and how much if any protection is being lost. But heigh ho this site is full of 'vaxperts' who keep ,pretending otherwise...
Worst case they're useless but given is better than worst case they're necessary but not given.
That's like saying you shouldn't have car insurance because you might not crash.
The excellent long article in the NS on 10 big reasons for 20 years of Labour decline can be helpfully distilled in chronological order for those without time to read it:
1) 2001 GE turnout 2) Iraq 3) 2004 Romanians etc FOM 4) 2007 No GE 5) 2008 Crash 6) 2010 Clegg turns Tory 7) 2010 The wrong brother 8) 2015 SNP 9) 2017 etc Corbyn delusion 10) 2016 (and continuing ad infinitum) Brexit
That’s a great read. ‘Seeking converts (in the 1990’s) not hunting traitors (today)’ is a really well thought out comment on how labours approach has changed.
Quite. I vote Labour in local elections for people I know and respect, but won't vote for them in a GE until their members as a whole are plainly opposed to and absolutely hostile to anti Semites and don't speak of 'Tory scum' 'Never kissed a Tory' and all that nonsense.
And they need to have a coherent post-Brexit policy too. This is a generation long enterprise. Fudge and silence won't do.
I vote labour at a national level as an endorsement of my local MP who I have a lot of time for. Many labour MPs in the North East are just hopeless though. I’d find it hard to vote for a fair few of them. I was brought up to believe the Tories were not for the working class but it’s hard to see what labour is for these days and what it offers working class communities and people apart from demonisation.
I vote locally for whoever I think will do the best job for the ward. Last time out it was Tory and Indy.
Labours online supporters with all this Tory scum, never kissed a Tory stuff I agree with you. It’s nonsense. Abusing people for voting the wrong way and wishing communities who voted Brexit suffer mass unemployment and hardship then wondering why they won’t vote labour is just madness.
You’re right, labour needs a coherent position on Brexit. Blair has started to articulate one. But labour is miles away from that or from offering anything other than not being the Tories.
Oh no, coherence and honesty is the last thing anyone needs on Brexit.
Remember: There is a small but solid and lead for "the 2016 vote was a mistake." Overall, embracing it would do more harm than good for Labour. There's a widespread sense that it's not going well. (Polling data here: https://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/) There is a chunky group who loudly fear Breturn, and a small (but loud) group who would rejoin tomorrow.
So what Starmer needs to do is simple, but dishonest.
1 Blame the problems on Johnson's Brexit. The problem wasn't with the public, it was with BoJo.
2 Suggest super-reasonable co-operation to make trading more workable. The TCA framework allows for this. These will be mostly on the EU's terms, but that doesn't need to be said. Concentrate on the benefits for British people, so that the government look like the idealogues.
3 Don't talk about the endpoint. The endpoint is obvious, which is why Johnson fears it. But as a country, we're not ready for it yet. If you must, talk about keeping options open for future generations.
Trouble is, that requires Starmer to be dishonest, and hard FBPEers to be patient. Neither of which is likely. Which will make it all more painful than it needs to be.
Why does this require Starmer to be dishonest? Might not be totally honest, but hey, this is politics. 1. Seems perfectly reasonable to me; 'oven-ready deal' and all that 2. The benefits to the British people were woefully undersold by Cameron and his team 3. Sounds sensible.
Luke Akehurst @lukeakehurst · 17h Its simply absurd to expect Labour to tolerate, let alone fund, a youth section that is openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests or indulging the promotion of policy stances that embarrass the party or are antithetical to our values
adrian mcmenamin @adrianmcmenamin Replying to @lukeakehurst and @charleswhite3 Absolutely - there is difference between having ideas that push boundaries or running campaigns that raise eyebrows and being a magnet for the tiny number of Stalin-fanciers aged under 26
People like Akehurst are as much a part of the problem in labour as the youth wing although for different reasons.
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
I suspect some may fear that there will be tax increases without necessarily sorting out Social Care.
There are multiple competing groups with different desired outcomes
- The elderly, who may, or may not, need care in their old age - Their heirs, who understandably would rather inherit more, rather than less, and no longer have the family structure, capability or desire to care for their parents as was more general historically. - The tax payer, who picks up the bill for the elderly who either haven't or couldn't save for their care and any gaps brought about by defending their heir's inheritance (often dressed up in more emotive terms).
I fear general taxation will prove to be the path of least resistance.
Luke Akehurst @lukeakehurst · 17h Its simply absurd to expect Labour to tolerate, let alone fund, a youth section that is openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests or indulging the promotion of policy stances that embarrass the party or are antithetical to our values
adrian mcmenamin @adrianmcmenamin Replying to @lukeakehurst and @charleswhite3 Absolutely - there is difference between having ideas that push boundaries or running campaigns that raise eyebrows and being a magnet for the tiny number of Stalin-fanciers aged under 26
People like Akehurst are as much a part of the problem in labour as the youth wing although for different reasons.
Still fighting each other and looking inwards
Problem is ignoring severe division for the sake of false unity doesn't work either, so as unpleasant as it gets the party might well need one side to achieve total victory before they can properly rebuild.
Luke Akehurst @lukeakehurst · 17h Its simply absurd to expect Labour to tolerate, let alone fund, a youth section that is openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests or indulging the promotion of policy stances that embarrass the party or are antithetical to our values
adrian mcmenamin @adrianmcmenamin Replying to @lukeakehurst and @charleswhite3 Absolutely - there is difference between having ideas that push boundaries or running campaigns that raise eyebrows and being a magnet for the tiny number of Stalin-fanciers aged under 26
Old Lukey wasn't so precious about openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests when Jezza was in charge.
I think the planned NI rise will cost those on £40k £300 a year, and those on £50k £500 a year more. It will hit more than 25 million workers. And it may also do this just as inflation bites, tax thresholds are frozen, and commuting costs start to kick back in again.
We are facing a real-terms squeeze in incomes and the standard of living.
It will not be popular, despite what polling may currently suggest, and so now's the time to lay Dishy Rishi.
It's completely regressive, leaves older workers off scot free; hits strivers hard. And it won't actually solve anything. Every diversity post in the NHS needs scrapping 1st
I'd have more respect for a party that taxed asset wealth, which is hideously undertaxed, rather than progressively squeezing the incomes of those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to get on.
I mean, does the government realise that if you're a graduate in your 20s these days you effectively pay 41% tax (NI+IT+SL) *plus* at least 5% of your pension, and that this will last for virtually all of your working life? That house prices are high and that getting a deposit together is really hard work? That childcare costs are extortionate? That transport and energy costs keep inflating ahead of RPI each year too?
No, because the oldies get all the baubles and are entirely shameless about it.
Young people voted Conservative in 1979 because they thought it would help them get on. I see virtually no reason for them to vote Conservative today and, lo and behold, they don't.
Agreed. A point that only really struck me after I passed 65 is that if you have a good workplace pension you can claim it and carry on working, and then you'll be better off than you've ever been. Not paying the same level of tax/NI as anyone else is an embarassing bonus.
That said, for a few years I've been caught in the £100-125K trap with disappearing personal allowance (which creates a 60% tax band that goes away above £125K) which was absent-mindedly created by Gordon and I equally absent-mindedly voted for. (Karma, innit.) It would be sensible to create a 50% tax band from £100K instead of withdrawing the PA - there's no logical reason why the effective tax bounces in that particular bracket. But there's virtually nobody in that tax bracket who is really suffering so it never gets fixed.
Yes, keeping personal allowances and lowering the 45% band to £100 000 would make a lot of sense. I have been bouncing around that bracket for some time, using various legitimate means to avoid the 60% band as far as possible.
Absolutely correct. The withdrawal of the personal allowance beyond £100,000pa is an absolute abomination and has cost me a lot of money! Much better to restore the personal allowance and have the 45% band start at £100,000.
Not only does it create additional and needless complexity, it also causes unintended behaviours as people try and avoid being drawn into paying it.
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
Does it need sorting? I’m not saying the current set up is fair, indeed, what’s proposed may be better for people like me in Surrey.
But I’ve always thought that the biggest danger for social care is a house price crash, which would result in the state having to fund more of the care.
This has always been an issue that the media likes to talk about, but it never strikes me as being a pressing concern of ordinary people.
Only because it affects people for certain periods of our lives, and some of us not at all. And many people cannot afford to do anything about it (e.g. to take out annuities) anyway.
But the media talk as though the social care sector is going to collapse. They’re not interviewing angry 50 somethings who feel they’ve missed out on their inheritance (which is what this is really about).
I actually thought what Theresa May proposed in 2017 was quite sensible, but the reaction showed just how illogical the discourse is.
Brexit and covid have done the social care sector a lot of damage, alongside local gmt cuts as discussed here, so I suppose the media are simply following on from that. But I still wonder if the issue is partly people hoping it won't affect then one way or anoither? I suppose the angry 50somethings are a relatively small minority outside the Tory Party membership?
Luke Akehurst @lukeakehurst · 17h Its simply absurd to expect Labour to tolerate, let alone fund, a youth section that is openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests or indulging the promotion of policy stances that embarrass the party or are antithetical to our values
adrian mcmenamin @adrianmcmenamin Replying to @lukeakehurst and @charleswhite3 Absolutely - there is difference between having ideas that push boundaries or running campaigns that raise eyebrows and being a magnet for the tiny number of Stalin-fanciers aged under 26
Old Lukey wasn't so precious about openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests when Jezza was in charge.
It is hard to imagine that anything Old Lukey said while the Jezaster was in charge could possibly have been more damaging than being led by the Jezaster.
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
Why do we need to pay even more taxes, so that people who have no mortgage can avoid paying for their own care?
And if we do need to pay even more taxes, why do only workers need to pay?
Why are Tories so grasping and greedy and only out for themselves, lacking in any milk of human kindness.
I do have human kindness.
That's why I find it evil to be taxing the poorest more, to redistribute to the wealthiest.
Why do you not object to that?
It's incredible that people accusing others of being greedy are absolutely against these taxes being levied on them. It must be one of those irregular verbs.
I like that insurance policy idea floated last night, a bit like life insurance for people with mortgages. The earlier you start the policy the cheaper it is and fixed for life etc... I'd be happy to do that at £20-30 per month.
I think the planned NI rise will cost those on £40k £300 a year, and those on £50k £500 a year more. It will hit more than 25 million workers. And it may also do this just as inflation bites, tax thresholds are frozen, and commuting costs start to kick back in again.
We are facing a real-terms squeeze in incomes and the standard of living.
It will not be popular, despite what polling may currently suggest, and so now's the time to lay Dishy Rishi.
It's completely regressive, leaves older workers off scot free; hits strivers hard. And it won't actually solve anything. Every diversity post in the NHS needs scrapping 1st
I'd have more respect for a party that taxed asset wealth, which is hideously undertaxed, rather than progressively squeezing the incomes of those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to get on.
I mean, does the government realise that if you're a graduate in your 20s these days you effectively pay 41% tax (NI+IT+SL) *plus* at least 5% of your pension, and that this will last for virtually all of your working life? That house prices are high and that getting a deposit together is really hard work? That childcare costs are extortionate? That transport and energy costs keep inflating ahead of RPI each year too?
No, because the oldies get all the baubles and are entirely shameless about it.
Young people voted Conservative in 1979 because they thought it would help them get on. I see virtually no reason for them to vote Conservative today and, lo and behold, they don't.
Those young people that voted Conservative in 1979 did do well. They are the retired of today, and still voting Conservative.
The population pyramid of the UK is such that the projected growth in the population is entirely of the elderly over the next 15 years. The working age population is stable, though projections were based on pre Brexit levels of immigration, so may actually be declining. That is the reality that politicians have to grapple with. Work longer, pay more, get less is the future for the current workers.
Similarly we are in a phase of economic development based on a service economy where productivity increases are minimal. Those workers cannot simultaneously be working in social care, picking vegetables, driving lorries and serving in hospitality. Sure, some will get pay rises, but some industries will just become uncompetitive and disappear. Demographics are going to be one of the big challenges for all advanced economies, but also for middle income countries like China and Brazil etc.
Perhaps our restaurants will become like the Swiss ones berated earlier, extortionately overpriced and decidedly average due to high labour costs. A shame as they have massively improved over recent decades.
I think it was Jay Rayner in the Observer who was recently bemoaning the practice of some restaurants to absurdly mark up the price of wine.
I think they were complaining about that when it was amphorae in which they served up the vino in Londinium!
Back in the dear dead days when we had white van men doing 'runs' to supermarkets in the Pas de Calais and flogging off their purchases to pubs and restaurants I was in a pub with one such WVM, who remarked that he'd just sold a couple of cases on 'something French' to a local restaurant for about £5 a bottle, and he'd seen it on their wine list for £20.
That’s 25% cost of sale, a little low but not unusual in London with high costs of operation. 30-33% is more usual for restaurant COS.
I think the planned NI rise will cost those on £40k £300 a year, and those on £50k £500 a year more. It will hit more than 25 million workers. And it may also do this just as inflation bites, tax thresholds are frozen, and commuting costs start to kick back in again.
We are facing a real-terms squeeze in incomes and the standard of living.
It will not be popular, despite what polling may currently suggest, and so now's the time to lay Dishy Rishi.
It's completely regressive, leaves older workers off scot free; hits strivers hard. And it won't actually solve anything. Every diversity post in the NHS needs scrapping 1st
I'd have more respect for a party that taxed asset wealth, which is hideously undertaxed, rather than progressively squeezing the incomes of those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to get on.
I mean, does the government realise that if you're a graduate in your 20s these days you effectively pay 41% tax (NI+IT+SL) *plus* at least 5% of your pension, and that this will last for virtually all of your working life? That house prices are high and that getting a deposit together is really hard work? That childcare costs are extortionate? That transport and energy costs keep inflating ahead of RPI each year too?
No, because the oldies get all the baubles and are entirely shameless about it.
Young people voted Conservative in 1979 because they thought it would help them get on. I see virtually no reason for them to vote Conservative today and, lo and behold, they don't.
Those young people that voted Conservative in 1979 did do well. They are the retired of today, and still voting Conservative.
The population pyramid of the UK is such that the projected growth in the population is entirely of the elderly over the next 15 years. The working age population is stable, though projections were based on pre Brexit levels of immigration, so may actually be declining. That is the reality that politicians have to grapple with. Work longer, pay more, get less is the future for the current workers.
Similarly we are in a phase of economic development based on a service economy where productivity increases are minimal. Those workers cannot simultaneously be working in social care, picking vegetables, driving lorries and serving in hospitality. Sure, some will get pay rises, but some industries will just become uncompetitive and disappear. Demographics are going to be one of the big challenges for all advanced economies, but also for middle income countries like China and Brazil etc.
Perhaps our restaurants will become like the Swiss ones berated earlier, extortionately overpriced and decidedly average due to high labour costs. A shame as they have massively improved over recent decades.
What's a 'high labour cost' for a restaurant ?
If its £1 over minimum wage then its not high and not going to have an effect on the price of a meal.
If it is say £20, which equates to about £40k annually, then that's not high for highly skilled work.
Why should posho restaurants with rich owners and rich customers not be prepared to pay for the value added by top quality workers ?
There is a balance to be found. The Swiss model is not good in terms of restaurants and the UK has created a brilliant restaurant sector that the demographic changes Foxy identifies puts at threat, that is all. I am not saying I have the answers, just it would be a shame if we lose that brilliant innovative sector that is good for peoples social lives.
Do you think you get a 'brilliant, innovative sector' at minimum wage rates ?
Do you think that 'brilliant, innovative' people should have a decent standard of living ?
If you want brilliance and innovation you have to be prepared to pay for it.
PB is full of people boasting about how much they earn and the posho restaurants they go to.
Well I'm on the side of the 'brilliant, innovative' people getting a pay rise and the boasters getting the bill.
Luke Akehurst @lukeakehurst · 17h Its simply absurd to expect Labour to tolerate, let alone fund, a youth section that is openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests or indulging the promotion of policy stances that embarrass the party or are antithetical to our values
adrian mcmenamin @adrianmcmenamin Replying to @lukeakehurst and @charleswhite3 Absolutely - there is difference between having ideas that push boundaries or running campaigns that raise eyebrows and being a magnet for the tiny number of Stalin-fanciers aged under 26
Old Lukey wasn't so precious about openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests when Jezza was in charge.
It is hard to imagine that anything Old Lukey said while the Jezaster was in charge could possibly have been more damaging than being led by the Jezaster.
And no doubt there are people saying similar about SKS (hi Big John!) now. The trouble is with the 'party unity only when it suits me' lads is that folk in general stop taking them seriously, if they ever did.
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
Let the old gits pay for it.
It's also interesting to note that this policy isn't going to simply be accepted. It's got life long Tory voters cutting up their membership cards. As I said yesterday, Theresa May lost because the average age of becoming a Tory voters went up to 55, Boris won a majority by bringing it back down to 39. He can't lose working age people from his electoral coalition because the majority goes with them. The Tory reliance on old wankers for votes will result in Labour winning 50%+ working age voters and 300+ seats.
An unpleasant post as you carry on your whingeing from yesterday.
WASHINGTON — Top federal health officials have told the White House to scale back a plan to offer coronavirus booster shots to the general public this month, saying that regulators need more time to collect and review all the necessary data, according to people familiar with the discussion.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned the White House on Thursday that their agencies may be able to determine in the coming weeks whether to recommend boosters only for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine — and possibly just some of them to start.
As I said yesterday there is some doubt as to the value of boosters - given too soon they may well be useless. Nor is it clear that all vaccines are waning at the same pace and how much if any protection is being lost. But heigh ho this site is full of 'vaxperts' who keep ,pretending otherwise...
Worst case they're useless but given is better than worst case they're necessary but not given.
That's like saying you shouldn't have car insurance because you might not crash.
I think the planned NI rise will cost those on £40k £300 a year, and those on £50k £500 a year more. It will hit more than 25 million workers. And it may also do this just as inflation bites, tax thresholds are frozen, and commuting costs start to kick back in again.
We are facing a real-terms squeeze in incomes and the standard of living.
It will not be popular, despite what polling may currently suggest, and so now's the time to lay Dishy Rishi.
It's completely regressive, leaves older workers off scot free; hits strivers hard. And it won't actually solve anything. Every diversity post in the NHS needs scrapping 1st
I'd have more respect for a party that taxed asset wealth, which is hideously undertaxed, rather than progressively squeezing the incomes of those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to get on.
I mean, does the government realise that if you're a graduate in your 20s these days you effectively pay 41% tax (NI+IT+SL) *plus* at least 5% of your pension, and that this will last for virtually all of your working life? That house prices are high and that getting a deposit together is really hard work? That childcare costs are extortionate? That transport and energy costs keep inflating ahead of RPI each year too?
No, because the oldies get all the baubles and are entirely shameless about it.
Young people voted Conservative in 1979 because they thought it would help them get on. I see virtually no reason for them to vote Conservative today and, lo and behold, they don't.
Those young people that voted Conservative in 1979 did do well. They are the retired of today, and still voting Conservative.
The population pyramid of the UK is such that the projected growth in the population is entirely of the elderly over the next 15 years. The working age population is stable, though projections were based on pre Brexit levels of immigration, so may actually be declining. That is the reality that politicians have to grapple with. Work longer, pay more, get less is the future for the current workers.
Similarly we are in a phase of economic development based on a service economy where productivity increases are minimal. Those workers cannot simultaneously be working in social care, picking vegetables, driving lorries and serving in hospitality. Sure, some will get pay rises, but some industries will just become uncompetitive and disappear. Demographics are going to be one of the big challenges for all advanced economies, but also for middle income countries like China and Brazil etc.
Perhaps our restaurants will become like the Swiss ones berated earlier, extortionately overpriced and decidedly average due to high labour costs. A shame as they have massively improved over recent decades.
What's a 'high labour cost' for a restaurant ?
If its £1 over minimum wage then its not high and not going to have an effect on the price of a meal.
If it is say £20, which equates to about £40k annually, then that's not high for highly skilled work.
Why should posho restaurants with rich owners and rich customers not be prepared to pay for the value added by top quality workers ?
There is a balance to be found. The Swiss model is not good in terms of restaurants and the UK has created a brilliant restaurant sector that the demographic changes Foxy identifies puts at threat, that is all. I am not saying I have the answers, just it would be a shame if we lose that brilliant innovative sector that is good for peoples social lives.
Do you think you get a 'brilliant, innovative sector' at minimum wage rates ?
Do you think that 'brilliant, innovative' people should have a decent standard of living ?
If you want brilliance and innovation you have to be prepared to pay for it.
PB is full of people boasting about how much they earn and the posho restaurants they go to.
Well I'm on the side of the 'brilliant, innovative' people getting a pay rise and the boasters getting the bill.
As I say there is a balance that needs to be found. If it is too expensive the quality goes down not up through lack of competition as seen in Switzerland or Scandinavia. Why? Because people just choose to eat at home instead.
So if labour costs rise to those levels, quality will go down not up. It is not just a question of being prepared to pay more get better quality and fairness in all sectors, particularly restaurants.
Re: the social care problem. Are we making the mistake of looking for a national solution to a local issue? Does the solution lie in allowing councils to raise more revenue themselves?
When do we get the empty waiting rooms and luxurious surroundings featured in that vote leave video, we should be asking?
My local surgery waiting room is empty. There are no appointments...
Mine too - they only let you in when the gp is ready to see you...
My GP service is no longer accessible. Slightly less importantly, Royal Mail doesn’t really seem to work anymore either.
Property prices in Upminster should be even higher than they are. We have been getting GP appts same day, or next at worst, and there are no empty shelves in any of the supermarkets.
A quick google suggests the local windmill is the third best thing to do in Upminster. Sounds to me like one of the places that will suffer most from wfh in the long run.
Outer suburban London is pleasant enough if you like that sort of thing. There is a risk of some London fringe places falling between multiple stools; too far out from London to really enjoy the fun, too close to London to get the positive vibes of space and remoteness, too diffuse and insufficient people to generate a life of their own. Just outside the M25 (the sort of places that were developed in the 21st century) might be more at risk than inter-War places just inside.
Not sure it is about the side of M25. In that part of the world Brentwood (outside) is imo nicer and has more to do than Upminster, Romford or Hornchurch (all inside) but has a worse commute into town. Without daily commuting I fail to see how the ratio of Brentwood prices vs the others doesn't move in Brentwood's direction.
What is harder to predict is the ratio of prices to the surrounding smaller villages or indeed to zone 1/2 London.
I’ve lived in Hornchurch, Romford and Upminster nearly all my life, and Upminster is by far the best of the three, although I think there are signs of decay there too - I doubt I will ever willingly go to Romford again in my life, it is horrible. Brentwood feels like Rommo from the 80s, it’s much less countrified than it used to be. I blame TOWIE
Got to stick up for my adopted hometown here- it's never felt horrible, and any decay is as nothing compared with post-industrial towns.
Romford does have a problem to answer though- having bet the farm on being a shopping destination, what's it for now that Lakeside has eaten that particular lunch? Especially since some of the other stuff that makes a town centre (like the theatre) are in Hornchurch.
I suspect the answer has to be to embrace its London-ness, especially with the eventual completion of Crossrail. Having had a couple of years away, there's been something a bit like gentrification going on- retirees or their children selling up, younger families moving in and visibly doing their places up. Coupled to that is a different mix of shops and businesses. Our local shopping street has a new organic cafe, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
And I accept that that sort of change, driven by internal migration, is painful for some. But the cost of trying to stop it is greater.
We are having the age old conversation - someone who has grown up in an area mourning the loss of what it used to be vs someone who has moved in recently not knowing it any different. I guess from my side it has a fair bit to do with the nostalgia of growing up happily. Most people who grew up in Rom moved to Brentwood 10-15 years ago, Brentwood 2021 is comparable to Romford in the 80s/90s
Can you believe the market used to be banged out every Wed/Fri/Sat? The whole are open and not one empty stall. Very different now
Absolutely. I fully understand.
I was back in my actual hometown over the Bank Holiday. It's a lovely place, but it got big because the Royal Navy needed it, and the RN doesn't really need it any more. And it's sadder than I remember it as a result.
And one hard thing is for a town to reinvent itself. But the other hard thing is disentangling nostalgia for the place from nostalgia for my youth.
A lot of normally sensible Conservative posters on here getting a little upset just because of a possible little tax increase.
Social care needs to be sorted. It needs more money and taxpayers have to pay. Let's get it sorted.
Let the old gits pay for it.
It's also interesting to note that this policy isn't going to simply be accepted. It's got life long Tory voters cutting up their membership cards. As I said yesterday, Theresa May lost because the average age of becoming a Tory voters went up to 55, Boris won a majority by bringing it back down to 39. He can't lose working age people from his electoral coalition because the majority goes with them. The Tory reliance on old wankers for votes will result in Labour winning 50%+ working age voters and 300+ seats.
Lots of old people at the cricket today. Enjoying the 'no wicket' environment. Including me.
Presumably no over 50s allower tomorrow for 'Trendy Sunday' when you and your pals go.
Re: the social care problem. Are we making the mistake of looking for a national solution to a local issue? Does the solution lie in allowing councils to raise more revenue themselves?
Instinctively, I would go the other way and integrate it into NHS to remove the bureaucracy of however many poorly funded councils trying to do the same tasks for small numbers of people. Good question.
I think the planned NI rise will cost those on £40k £300 a year, and those on £50k £500 a year more. It will hit more than 25 million workers. And it may also do this just as inflation bites, tax thresholds are frozen, and commuting costs start to kick back in again.
We are facing a real-terms squeeze in incomes and the standard of living.
It will not be popular, despite what polling may currently suggest, and so now's the time to lay Dishy Rishi.
It's completely regressive, leaves older workers off scot free; hits strivers hard. And it won't actually solve anything. Every diversity post in the NHS needs scrapping 1st
I'd have more respect for a party that taxed asset wealth, which is hideously undertaxed, rather than progressively squeezing the incomes of those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to get on.
I mean, does the government realise that if you're a graduate in your 20s these days you effectively pay 41% tax (NI+IT+SL) *plus* at least 5% of your pension, and that this will last for virtually all of your working life? That house prices are high and that getting a deposit together is really hard work? That childcare costs are extortionate? That transport and energy costs keep inflating ahead of RPI each year too?
No, because the oldies get all the baubles and are entirely shameless about it.
Young people voted Conservative in 1979 because they thought it would help them get on. I see virtually no reason for them to vote Conservative today and, lo and behold, they don't.
Was not long ago you were whining about not wanting to get into the dead zone and so wanted to stay on just over 100K a year, how greedy can you get whinging about a few hundred on NI.
How greedy can you get whinging that you might have to pay for your own care when you have hundreds of thousands in wealth?
So you want people with possibly no wealth, who have to pay rent and don't have their own home, to pay hundreds in extra tax each instead?
If they have no wealth they will be getting their rent paid for them in most cases, and if they are paying rent then it means they have money. You are not really up on these matters are you , plenty of renters are far richer than someone who owns a house but is very very poor.
One good thing to come if this NI increase passes is that far more people will realise workers over 65 don't pay NI, and the pressure for that to change will eventually win out.
Reception to the proposed NI rise has been very, very poor in various WhatsApp groups. Yesterday it wasn't as bad, this morning after discovering retired people don't pay NI it's extremely poor. As always I'm more an observer so didn't mention it yesterday.
These are people who aren't exactly natural Labour voters either. I'd guess at maybe a third having voted Tory and a third Labour in 2019 which is pretty representative for my age group.
If the Tories plough ahead despite working age people being against it the 2023/4 election is suddenly in play where it hasn't been until now. It could push the age of Tory voting up to 58-61 IMO which will put Labour on 300-310 seats. It would be a clear case of the government losing rather than Labour winning, all they need to do is oppose the NI rise, don't even bother offering an alternative. Just hammer the point of hitting working age people at the worst possible time.
Is this NI bollocks (which I don't really care about or understand) actually happening or has it been artfully leaked in some sort of gigascale focus group exercise to test reaction?
On a similar them Mrs DA opined this morning that the 'leak' about the queen's funeral was to soften us because she's looking a bit peaky and might kark it imminently.
Re: the social care problem. Are we making the mistake of looking for a national solution to a local issue? Does the solution lie in allowing councils to raise more revenue themselves?
Instinctively, I would go the other way and integrate it into NHS to remove the bureaucracy of however many poorly funded councils trying to do the same tasks for small numbers of people. Good question.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard the argument articulated. Personally I’m someone in favour of devolving politics as far down as possible, I’d give councils much more autonomy and let the people hold them accountable for their decisions.
The interface between healthcare and social care I agree is important.
Reception to the proposed NI rise has been very, very poor in various WhatsApp groups. Yesterday it wasn't as bad, this morning after discovering retired people don't pay NI it's extremely poor. As always I'm more an observer so didn't mention it yesterday.
These are people who aren't exactly natural Labour voters either. I'd guess at maybe a third having voted Tory and a third Labour in 2019 which is pretty representative for my age group.
If the Tories plough ahead despite working age people being against it the 2023/4 election is suddenly in play where it hasn't been until now. It could push the age of Tory voting up to 58-61 IMO which will put Labour on 300-310 seats. It would be a clear case of the government losing rather than Labour winning, all they need to do is oppose the NI rise, don't even bother offering an alternative. Just hammer the point of hitting working age people at the worst possible time.
Despite polling this intuitively to me seems right.
I’m reminded of Blair who said that whilst policies in isolation might be popular, as a package they are not. And the package to me doesn’t look very appealing.
I wonder if we'll see a geographic-generational shift in voting patterns with the Conservatives steadily becoming more Midland and North orientated where housing is still affordable and taxes on income relatively lower.
While simultaneously declining in the Waitrose-nimby belt.
If so there will come a tipping point when they switch to supporting taxes on expensive property.
Many MPs own lots of expensive property . They will never allow this.
I think the planned NI rise will cost those on £40k £300 a year, and those on £50k £500 a year more. It will hit more than 25 million workers. And it may also do this just as inflation bites, tax thresholds are frozen, and commuting costs start to kick back in again.
We are facing a real-terms squeeze in incomes and the standard of living.
It will not be popular, despite what polling may currently suggest, and so now's the time to lay Dishy Rishi.
It's completely regressive, leaves older workers off scot free; hits strivers hard. And it won't actually solve anything. Every diversity post in the NHS needs scrapping 1st
I'd have more respect for a party that taxed asset wealth, which is hideously undertaxed, rather than progressively squeezing the incomes of those in their 20s and 30s who are trying to get on.
I mean, does the government realise that if you're a graduate in your 20s these days you effectively pay 41% tax (NI+IT+SL) *plus* at least 5% of your pension, and that this will last for virtually all of your working life? That house prices are high and that getting a deposit together is really hard work? That childcare costs are extortionate? That transport and energy costs keep inflating ahead of RPI each year too?
No, because the oldies get all the baubles and are entirely shameless about it.
Young people voted Conservative in 1979 because they thought it would help them get on. I see virtually no reason for them to vote Conservative today and, lo and behold, they don't.
Those young people that voted Conservative in 1979 did do well. They are the retired of today, and still voting Conservative.
The population pyramid of the UK is such that the projected growth in the population is entirely of the elderly over the next 15 years. The working age population is stable, though projections were based on pre Brexit levels of immigration, so may actually be declining. That is the reality that politicians have to grapple with. Work longer, pay more, get less is the future for the current workers.
Similarly we are in a phase of economic development based on a service economy where productivity increases are minimal. Those workers cannot simultaneously be working in social care, picking vegetables, driving lorries and serving in hospitality. Sure, some will get pay rises, but some industries will just become uncompetitive and disappear. Demographics are going to be one of the big challenges for all advanced economies, but also for middle income countries like China and Brazil etc.
Perhaps our restaurants will become like the Swiss ones berated earlier, extortionately overpriced and decidedly average due to high labour costs. A shame as they have massively improved over recent decades.
What's a 'high labour cost' for a restaurant ?
If its £1 over minimum wage then its not high and not going to have an effect on the price of a meal.
If it is say £20, which equates to about £40k annually, then that's not high for highly skilled work.
Why should posho restaurants with rich owners and rich customers not be prepared to pay for the value added by top quality workers ?
There is a balance to be found. The Swiss model is not good in terms of restaurants and the UK has created a brilliant restaurant sector that the demographic changes Foxy identifies puts at threat, that is all. I am not saying I have the answers, just it would be a shame if we lose that brilliant innovative sector that is good for peoples social lives.
Do you think you get a 'brilliant, innovative sector' at minimum wage rates ?
Do you think that 'brilliant, innovative' people should have a decent standard of living ?
If you want brilliance and innovation you have to be prepared to pay for it.
PB is full of people boasting about how much they earn and the posho restaurants they go to.
Well I'm on the side of the 'brilliant, innovative' people getting a pay rise and the boasters getting the bill.
As I say there is a balance that needs to be found. If it is too expensive the quality goes down not up through lack of competition as seen in Switzerland or Scandinavia. Why? Because people just choose to eat at home instead.
So if labour costs rise to those levels, quality will go down not up. It is not just a question of being prepared to pay more get better quality and fairness in all sectors, particularly restaurants.
I doubt it would affect the higher levels but it could sweep away much of the mediocre middle - which was already happening before covid.
I wonder if we'll see a geographic-generational shift in voting patterns with the Conservatives steadily becoming more Midland and North orientated where housing is still affordable and taxes on income relatively lower.
While simultaneously declining in the Waitrose-nimby belt.
If so there will come a tipping point when they switch to supporting taxes on expensive property.
Many MPs own lots of expensive property . They will never allow this.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Very well said Max, I feel shafted and because my vote is irrelevant nothing will change.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
That’s not the question. Elderly people get looked after whatever. The question is, should more be done to protect inheritances?
The press are too dumb to spot it, but this doesn’t exactly fit with the government’s levelling up agenda.
Seems to me that this is classic cynical Tory politics that will not impact them at all in the polls but it blooming well should.
I suspect that the more widely known becomes the anomaly of over-65s not paying NI at all, the less popular it will be. That’s the angle that opponents of the government need to push.
Furthermore , my membership of the conservative party has now lapsed and I am a free political spirit
Come on over to the Greens. 🌻
BigG always has PC if the Greens are too chlorophyll-laden.
I was being serious. Big G is the sort of fundamentally decent pragmatist which is occasionally in short supply among the ranks of hunt sabbers, XR tensegrity architects, druids, mad scientists, women of a certain age with plenty of cats, naturists, homebrew solar panel experts and detectorists with which the party is abundantly blessed.
You realise Big G "quits" the Tory party about five times every year, whilst professing to have supported it for decades, don't you?
If your weathervane at @Dura_Ace towers is broken then get him stuffed and stick him on the roof. He'll be more accurate than an atomic clock.
Is this NI bollocks (which I don't really care about or understand) actually happening or has it been artfully leaked in some sort of gigascale focus group exercise to test reaction?
On a similar them Mrs DA opined this morning that the 'leak' about the queen's funeral was to soften us because she's looking a bit peaky and might kark it imminently.
You could be right. On the day the Queen passes, they'll announce a 2% rise in NI, and nobody will notice.
1% to pay for social care. 1% to pay the funeral costs.
Boris has made the right call, refusing another dementia tax like May which cost her a majority in 2017 as 45-65 year olds saw their inheritance vanish if their parents needed at home care and sticking to a small 1% rise in NI, seeing off Javid and Sunak too who wanted a bigger NI rise.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and co going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories and Conservatives anyway.
Longer term some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
When do we get the empty waiting rooms and luxurious surroundings featured in that vote leave video, we should be asking?
My local surgery waiting room is empty. There are no appointments...
Mine too - they only let you in when the gp is ready to see you...
My GP service is no longer accessible. Slightly less importantly, Royal Mail doesn’t really seem to work anymore either.
Property prices in Upminster should be even higher than they are. We have been getting GP appts same day, or next at worst, and there are no empty shelves in any of the supermarkets.
A quick google suggests the local windmill is the third best thing to do in Upminster. Sounds to me like one of the places that will suffer most from wfh in the long run.
Outer suburban London is pleasant enough if you like that sort of thing. There is a risk of some London fringe places falling between multiple stools; too far out from London to really enjoy the fun, too close to London to get the positive vibes of space and remoteness, too diffuse and insufficient people to generate a life of their own. Just outside the M25 (the sort of places that were developed in the 21st century) might be more at risk than inter-War places just inside.
Not sure it is about the side of M25. In that part of the world Brentwood (outside) is imo nicer and has more to do than Upminster, Romford or Hornchurch (all inside) but has a worse commute into town. Without daily commuting I fail to see how the ratio of Brentwood prices vs the others doesn't move in Brentwood's direction.
What is harder to predict is the ratio of prices to the surrounding smaller villages or indeed to zone 1/2 London.
I’ve lived in Hornchurch, Romford and Upminster nearly all my life, and Upminster is by far the best of the three, although I think there are signs of decay there too - I doubt I will ever willingly go to Romford again in my life, it is horrible. Brentwood feels like Rommo from the 80s, it’s much less countrified than it used to be. I blame TOWIE
Got to stick up for my adopted hometown here- it's never felt horrible, and any decay is as nothing compared with post-industrial towns.
Romford does have a problem to answer though- having bet the farm on being a shopping destination, what's it for now that Lakeside has eaten that particular lunch? Especially since some of the other stuff that makes a town centre (like the theatre) are in Hornchurch.
I suspect the answer has to be to embrace its London-ness, especially with the eventual completion of Crossrail. Having had a couple of years away, there's been something a bit like gentrification going on- retirees or their children selling up, younger families moving in and visibly doing their places up. Coupled to that is a different mix of shops and businesses. Our local shopping street has a new organic cafe, which would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
And I accept that that sort of change, driven by internal migration, is painful for some. But the cost of trying to stop it is greater.
We are having the age old conversation - someone who has grown up in an area mourning the loss of what it used to be vs someone who has moved in recently not knowing it any different. I guess from my side it has a fair bit to do with the nostalgia of growing up happily. Most people who grew up in Rom moved to Brentwood 10-15 years ago, Brentwood 2021 is comparable to Romford in the 80s/90s
Can you believe the market used to be banged out every Wed/Fri/Sat? The whole are open and not one empty stall. Very different now
Absolutely. I fully understand.
I was back in my actual hometown over the Bank Holiday. It's a lovely place, but it got big because the Royal Navy needed it, and the RN doesn't really need it any more. And it's sadder than I remember it as a result.
And one hard thing is for a town to reinvent itself. But the other hard thing is disentangling nostalgia for the place from nostalgia for my youth.
I never knew Romford was a navy town..
Like Swindon, the clue is in its supposed assets starting with a list of other places in the region that you can easily drive to
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Very well said Max, I feel shafted and because my vote is irrelevant nothing will change.
I'm a good deal closer to collecting my pension than you, and agree with both of you. Max's vote, and that of Tory voters like him, could of course make a difference.
Reception to the proposed NI rise has been very, very poor in various WhatsApp groups. Yesterday it wasn't as bad, this morning after discovering retired people don't pay NI it's extremely poor. As always I'm more an observer so didn't mention it yesterday.
These are people who aren't exactly natural Labour voters either. I'd guess at maybe a third having voted Tory and a third Labour in 2019 which is pretty representative for my age group.
If the Tories plough ahead despite working age people being against it the 2023/4 election is suddenly in play where it hasn't been until now. It could push the age of Tory voting up to 58-61 IMO which will put Labour on 300-310 seats. It would be a clear case of the government losing rather than Labour winning, all they need to do is oppose the NI rise, don't even bother offering an alternative. Just hammer the point of hitting working age people at the worst possible time.
Isn't "The government's plan, but put it on IT not NI, so everyone pays a fair share" an absolute gimmie for the opposition?
And what's the timeframe for this? The next election might be a way off, but it's not that far away, as BoJo boosters like to point out.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Those of us on the left, by and large, agree with your general point: that NI should apply to all income, regardless of age. And that there may be arguments for taxing pensioners more. Your argument is with Tories, I suspect.
But then you call us "old wankers", and various other forms of abuse. So we ignore you.
I'd rather be an old pleasant wanker than a young unpleasant wanker, frankly.
Boris has made the right call, refusing another dementia tax like May which cost her a majority in 2017 as 45-65 year olds saw their inheritance vanish if their parents needed at home care and sticking to a small 1% rise in NI, seeing off Javid and Sunak too who wanted a bigger NI rise.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and go going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories anyway.
Longer terms some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
If all these not-Tories vote for someone else, or don’t vote at all, then we end up with a Labour government.
We all used to critisise the Corbyn fan club, for being way more interested in ideological purity, than the pragmatism required to actually wield power.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
That’s not the question. Elderly people get looked after whatever. The question is, should more be done to protect inheritances?
The press are too dumb to spot it, but this doesn’t exactly fit with the government’s levelling up agenda.
Seems to me that this is classic cynical Tory politics that will not impact them at all in the polls but it blooming well should.
I suspect that the more widely known becomes the anomaly of over-65s not paying NI at all, the less popular it will be. That’s the angle that opponents of the government need to push.
Labour really have very little to lose here, they get a very low share of the over 65s anyway, those that are left are unlikely to switch over NI. Labour should become the party of labour and the workers again. They won't though.
Boris has made the right call, refusing another dementia tax like May which cost her a majority in 2017 as 45-65 year olds saw their inheritance vanish if their parents needed at home care and sticking to a small 1% rise in NI, seeing off Javid and Sunak too who wanted a bigger NI rise.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and go going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories anyway.
Longer terms some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
If all these not-Tories vote for someone else, or don’t vote at all, then we end up with a Labour government.
We all used to critisise the Corbyn fan club, for being way more interested in ideological purity, than the pragmatism required to actually wield power.
We don't we end up with the LDs having the balance of power in a hung parliament, they will not vote Labour either, LDs as 2010 showed can go either way for the Tories or Labour.
However I would rather lose on a Tory platform than win on a Liberal one
Boris has made the right call, refusing another dementia tax like May which cost her a majority in 2017 as 45-65 year olds saw their inheritance vanish if their parents needed at home care and sticking to a small 1% rise in NI, seeing off Javid and Sunak too who wanted a bigger NI rise.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and co going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories anyway.
Longer term some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
That’s not the question. Elderly people get looked after whatever. The question is, should more be done to protect inheritances?
The press are too dumb to spot it, but this doesn’t exactly fit with the government’s levelling up agenda.
Seems to me that this is classic cynical Tory politics that will not impact them at all in the polls but it blooming well should.
The problem is that most people don’t understand the current system. That’s why when May put forward her proposals, opposition politicians said that the Tories want to steal your house and got away with it.
I talk about this a lot, but monetary policy has played a big part in this. I’ve despaired at house prices where I live. The flip side is that my parents own their home, which I also live in. There’s a bit of me that thinks “I’ve been screwed by low interest rates and QE, so I bloody well deserve a decent inheritance.”
Of course, there are some people in my area who won’t be getting an inheritance. Why should they have to pay more tax for my benefit?
This is a complex subject with lots of nuances. It’s also something that we don’t like talking about. Sadly our politicians and, especially the media, aren’t grown up enough to talk about it sensibly.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Very well said Max, I feel shafted and because my vote is irrelevant nothing will change.
I'm a good deal closer to collecting my pension than you, and agree with both of you. Max's vote, and that of Tory voters like him, could of course make a difference.
Younger people are slaughtered day after day in the press, on social media, here, everywhere, for eating too many avocados and complaining yet the elderly have to pay a bit more and suddenly the Government falls at their feet and does what they ask. It stinks - and it has been going on for far too long.
Any mention of housing, or tuition fees and you get laughed out of the room. It's pathetic.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
Your attitude to the young is just as unpleasant, I've never once heard you stand up for any of us.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Those of us on the left, by and large, agree with your general point: that NI should apply to all income, regardless of age. And that there may be arguments for taxing pensioners more. Your argument is with Tories, I suspect.
But then you call us "old wankers", and various other forms of abuse. So we ignore you.
I'd rather be an old pleasant wanker than a young unpleasant wanker, frankly.
Your generation feels entitled to my income, it gives me the right say whatever I want. I think your generation is underestimating the anger young people have over this stuff, especially after 18 months of being locked up to stop your generation from keeling over and dying. My language is nothing compared to what I've been seeing on WhatsApp this morning after people are discovering that NI isn't paid by retirees.
Re: the social care problem. Are we making the mistake of looking for a national solution to a local issue? Does the solution lie in allowing councils to raise more revenue themselves?
Instinctively, I would go the other way and integrate it into NHS to remove the bureaucracy of however many poorly funded councils trying to do the same tasks for small numbers of people. Good question.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard the argument articulated. Personally I’m someone in favour of devolving politics as far down as possible, I’d give councils much more autonomy and let the people hold them accountable for their decisions.
The interface between healthcare and social care I agree is important.
One of the reasons for the crisis in social care is that government has devolved it to the local level, so has not paid the price for its decline as council budgets have been squeezed. Local authorities have effectively been left with the responsibility, without the power, and central government the power without responsibility. That makes for tactical advantages, but does not make for effective democracy.
Boris has made the right call, refusing another dementia tax like May which cost her a majority in 2017 as 45-65 year olds saw their inheritance vanish if their parents needed at home care and sticking to a small 1% rise in NI, seeing off Javid and Sunak too who wanted a bigger NI rise.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and co going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories and Conservatives anyway.
Longer term some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
The problem is that a country which places too much emphasis on the wealth side of the wealth/work divide will ultimately lose its workers.
Which would not be good for its economy or for its society in general.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
That’s not the question. Elderly people get looked after whatever. The question is, should more be done to protect inheritances?
The press are too dumb to spot it, but this doesn’t exactly fit with the government’s levelling up agenda.
Seems to me that this is classic cynical Tory politics that will not impact them at all in the polls but it blooming well should.
I suspect that the more widely known becomes the anomaly of over-65s not paying NI at all, the less popular it will be. That’s the angle that opponents of the government need to push.
Labour really have very little to lose here, they get a very low share of the over 65s anyway, those that are left are unlikely to switch over NI. Labour should become the party of labour and the workers again. They won't though.
The problem is, politicians - especially Labour ones - don’t like sticking it to a group of people (apart from billionaires). They like to stick up for people.
Look at the triple lock situation. It’s obvious that pensions shouldn’t go up by 8%, yet Labour play the “you’re breaking a manifesto pledge” card.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
It's divinely ordained that way. End of.
Let's play uno! The elderly can pay for my tuition fees
In my day they did exactly that. You have no idea how good a rigged system feels when it's rigged in your favour.
Seriously, I feel that it has been and I don't feel good about it. OTOH I am the parent or the younger generation and feel its pain.
My point wasn't entirely serious to be honest. I oppose tuition fees on principle but I think the system as it exists (a Lib Dem policy as I recall it), is actually reasonably fair.
But if you proposed something like that for the elderly, they would be up in arms.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
Ageing may not be pleasant but you should not grumble, considering the alternative.
That the average pensioner now has higher income, net of housing costs, than the average economically active person is a striking statistic
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Those of us on the left, by and large, agree with your general point: that NI should apply to all income, regardless of age. And that there may be arguments for taxing pensioners more. Your argument is with Tories, I suspect.
But then you call us "old wankers", and various other forms of abuse. So we ignore you.
I'd rather be an old pleasant wanker than a young unpleasant wanker, frankly.
Your generation feels entitled to my income, it gives me the right say whatever I want. I think your generation is underestimating the anger young people have over this stuff, especially after 18 months of being locked up to stop your generation from keeling over and dying. My language is nothing compared to what I've been seeing on WhatsApp this morning after people are discovering that NI isn't paid by retirees.
If the young came out to vote in sufficient numbers (and by young I mean under 40 as I recall it), the Tories would lose and lose badly. So let's see.
Personally at this stage I'd like a Labour/Lib Dem Government, Labour have too many morons on the backbenches that need to be restrained/removed and the Lib Dems can't possibly get enough seats on their own.
Then maybe Johnson will leave for good and the Tories can go back to being moderately sensible and we can go back to boring politics again.
Boris has made the right call, refusing another dementia tax like May which cost her a majority in 2017 as 45-65 year olds saw their inheritance vanish if their parents needed at home care and sticking to a small 1% rise in NI, seeing off Javid and Sunak too who wanted a bigger NI rise.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and go going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories anyway.
Longer terms some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
If all these not-Tories vote for someone else, or don’t vote at all, then we end up with a Labour government.
We all used to critisise the Corbyn fan club, for being way more interested in ideological purity, than the pragmatism required to actually wield power.
We don't we end up with the LDs having the balance of power in a hung parliament, they will not vote Labour either, LDs as 2010 showed can go either way for the Tories or Labour.
However I would rather lose on a Tory platform than win on a Liberal one
If you're elderly and have owned a house a long time you can just sit around and wait, it's legitimately pathetic that you can accuse young people of feeling entitled.
I'm only in the position to buy because I happened to very fortunately inherit money from a relative (as did my brother). If we were not in that position we wouldn't be able to buy a house despite our combined salaries being well over £100K a year, now you tell me if that is right
Re: the social care problem. Are we making the mistake of looking for a national solution to a local issue? Does the solution lie in allowing councils to raise more revenue themselves?
Instinctively, I would go the other way and integrate it into NHS to remove the bureaucracy of however many poorly funded councils trying to do the same tasks for small numbers of people. Good question.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard the argument articulated. Personally I’m someone in favour of devolving politics as far down as possible, I’d give councils much more autonomy and let the people hold them accountable for their decisions.
The interface between healthcare and social care I agree is important.
The problem with social care being local government's responsibility and health being funded separately is that it leads to inefficiency. I spent months trying to help a city council and local CCGs to get a joint venture working but in the end it didn't because there was no easy way for health to give money to the local authority for example to avoid bed blocking, which would save money overall. And health staff couldn't work in a joint team because their pension rules didn't allow it.
So making health and social care part of the same system might be the only way to make it work.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
It's divinely ordained that way. End of.
Let's play uno! The elderly can pay for my tuition fees
In my day they did exactly that. You have no idea how good a rigged system feels when it's rigged in your favour.
Seriously, I feel that it has been and I don't feel good about it. OTOH I am the parent or the younger generation and feel its pain.
My point wasn't entirely serious to be honest. I oppose tuition fees on principle but I think the system as it exists (a Lib Dem policy as I recall it), is actually reasonably fair.
But if you proposed something like that for the elderly, they would be up in arms.
It was designed by Labour, inflated by the Tories and tweaked by the LibDems in the direction of a graduate tax
Re: the social care problem. Are we making the mistake of looking for a national solution to a local issue? Does the solution lie in allowing councils to raise more revenue themselves?
Instinctively, I would go the other way and integrate it into NHS to remove the bureaucracy of however many poorly funded councils trying to do the same tasks for small numbers of people. Good question.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t heard the argument articulated. Personally I’m someone in favour of devolving politics as far down as possible, I’d give councils much more autonomy and let the people hold them accountable for their decisions.
The interface between healthcare and social care I agree is important.
One of the reasons for the crisis in social care is that government has devolved it to the local level, so has not paid the price for its decline as council budgets have been squeezed. Local authorities have effectively been left with the responsibility, without the power, and central government the power without responsibility. That makes for tactical advantages, but does not make for effective democracy.
Agreed. There should be fewer restrictions on council fundraising, it’s not really very fair to expect councils to do more and more, while restricting their ability to earn revenue from taxation. We end up with things like utterly draconican enforcement of trivialities such as parking and bins, which just annoy people for no useful purpose.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
There is an unpleasantness that has crept into this discussion, especially when the debate gets personalised.
@MaxPB stop being a dick. I, and many others, basically agree with what you’re saying, but the way you say it seriously undermines our argument.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
It's divinely ordained that way. End of.
Let's play uno! The elderly can pay for my tuition fees
In my day they did exactly that. You have no idea how good a rigged system feels when it's rigged in your favour.
Seriously, I feel that it has been and I don't feel good about it. OTOH I am the parent or the younger generation and feel its pain.
My point wasn't entirely serious to be honest. I oppose tuition fees on principle but I think the system as it exists (a Lib Dem policy as I recall it), is actually reasonably fair.
But if you proposed something like that for the elderly, they would be up in arms.
It was designed by Labour, inflated by the Tories and tweaked by the LibDems in the direction of a graduate tax
What I meant - my apologies for being unclear - was that the "tweaked" system as you call it was originally a Lib Dem policy. I know Labour introduced tuition fees in the first place (something I opposed on principle) but with their policy you paid in advance (£1000 a year was it?).
Martin Lewis has made some great videos on the subject and argues we should just call it a graduate contribution and not even refer to the amount borrowed at all.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
There is an unpleasantness that has crept into this discussion, especially when the debate gets personalised.
@MaxPB stop being a dick. I, and many others, basically agree with what you’re saying, but the way you say it seriously undermines our argument.
I must admit a general calming down would be a good idea. I've been wondering how many of the discutants over the social care issue have fitted carpets. It must be getting quite expensive for them with all the holes bitten in them.
Nah Max is right and this is exactly the point he was making. You make a point about this and you're immediately called unpleasant or rude.
Yet I see comments about young people being lazy, sitting indoors all day playing PlayStation, not working during the pandemic and it just gets a pass.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
Your attitude to the young is just as unpleasant, I've never once heard you stand up for any of us.
I have stood up for young people all my life not just by having three children but also four grandchildren
I have been chairman of our PTA, chairman of the group scout council, founder and treasurer of the local community hall, fund raising chairman in charge of a major festival attracting over 20,000 people with all proceeds going to youth charities and last, but not least, organising visits to our town from deprived children who actually ran into the sea fully clothed never having seen or heard of it
Maybe you need to be careful how you throw accusations around
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
Those of us on the left, by and large, agree with your general point: that NI should apply to all income, regardless of age. And that there may be arguments for taxing pensioners more. Your argument is with Tories, I suspect.
But then you call us "old wankers", and various other forms of abuse. So we ignore you.
I'd rather be an old pleasant wanker than a young unpleasant wanker, frankly.
Several points here:
Brexit and Trump have surely shown that directly insulting the people whose views you want to change leads them to double down rather than listen and change.
Those views, however, absolutely do need to be challenged more politely, and that the older generation are still surprised that the younger generation is angry and frustrated is in itself a sign that they were not listening before it got to this stage either.
Finally, I dont think this is a left v right issue but a young/middle aged v pensioner one. Aiui Labour have not supported the end of the triple lock, nor fairness in inter generational taxation. The people angry about it on here range from CHB on the left to centrists like myself and CR, PT and Max on the right. Neither Labour or Tories are with us and whilst it is possible Labour get there, personally I think that is unlikely to happen.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
There is an unpleasantness that has crept into this discussion, especially when the debate gets personalised.
@MaxPB stop being a dick. I, and many others, basically agree with what you’re saying, but the way you say it seriously undermines our argument.
I must admit a general calming down would be a good idea. I've been wondering how many of the discutants over the social care issue have fitted carpets. It must be getting quite expensive for them with all the holes bitten in them.
Laminate chewing for the younger generation. Though being renters it will come off their deposit.
Nah Max is right and this is exactly the point he was making. You make a point about this and you're immediately called unpleasant or rude.
Yet I see comments about young people being lazy, sitting indoors all day playing PlayStation, not working during the pandemic and it just gets a pass.
Bunch of hypocrites the lot
There is, however, one way I do call [edit] some young lazy, irresponsibvle and feckless - and that is in not using their vote.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
My dad is literally in that position having reached the age of retirement last November. He laid out to me and my sister his plan to spend as much money as possible before he dies rather than accumulate it and then the both of us having to deal with IHT. Fair enough, neither of us need the inheritance, but when we went through the numbers it was quite ridiculous. He will get net income of over £60k per year from his various pensions, equity investments and state pension. It's literally more than he can spend in retirement, he's got no mortgage, no dependent kids, my mum works for a school and will get a pretty fat local government defined benefit pension when she retires early next year.
In what world does it make sense that he pays less tax than a 40 year old on the same salary as his gross income?
16% of retired people are higher rate tax payers, 3% are additional rate tax payers. These are people who not only have significant wealth, they also have significant income and little to no outgoings given they are retired.
All I'm asking for is, before working age people are hit for yet another tax, the wealthy of your own generation are asked to stump up first. We could easily raise £20bn per year from that cohort with state pension withdrawal higher income tax rates on pensions and "unearned income" and merging NI with income tax. Instead working families are being hit for £1000 per year at a time when finances are already stretched and inflation is shooting up.
Boris has made the right call, refusing another dementia tax like May which cost her a majority in 2017 as 45-65 year olds saw their inheritance vanish if their parents needed at home care and sticking to a small 1% rise in NI, seeing off Javid and Sunak too who wanted a bigger NI rise.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and co going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories and Conservatives anyway.
Longer term some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
That’s not the question. Elderly people get looked after whatever. The question is, should more be done to protect inheritances?
The press are too dumb to spot it, but this doesn’t exactly fit with the government’s levelling up agenda.
One of the issues with all this that doesn't seem to get highlighted is that most elderly people will not need huge social care bills at the end of their lives. Dilnott reckoned about 10% need the kinds of levels of provision for years that wrecks any chances of passing on the family home (e.g. dementia care for years with bills of £100K+).
So, there's a lottery over the inheritance. A small % of the families who might have inherited property get hit and the others don't.*
The lottery is even more iniquitous since some can prove their care needs fall under NHS duty of care and they are fully funded (at least for the care bit, not the B&B bit iirc). Dementia doesn't. But other illnesses do.
* and obviously the only families where this is an issue are property owning middle classes with assets. Large numbers don't have this issue.
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
Your attitude to the young is just as unpleasant, I've never once heard you stand up for any of us.
I have stood up for young people all my life not just by having three children but also four grandchildren
I have been chairman of our PTA, chairman of the group scout council, founder and treasurer of the local community hall, fund raising chairman in charge of a major festival attracting over 20,000 people with all proceeds going to youth charities and last, but not least, organising visits to our town from deprived children who actually ran into the sea fully clothed never having seen or heard of it
Maybe you need to be careful how you throw accusations around
Producing children would appear to be unrelated to backing their social and political interests. As is a list of voluntary activities, however worthy
Can somebody explain to me why young people should pay for the care of the elderly, can somebody explain that coherently
They can't mate, all they have is resorting to calling young people greedy or unpleasant for asking the old to pay their own way. The level of entitlement the generation above have is ridiculous.
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
I really do think you are way out by suggesting a retired person receives an £80k gross income nett £60.5, as these are figures I just cannot accept as anything other than for an exceptional few, and the vast majority of pensioners will struggle to see £20k pa, even much less
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
There is an unpleasantness that has crept into this discussion, especially when the debate gets personalised.
@MaxPB stop being a dick. I, and many others, basically agree with what you’re saying, but the way you say it seriously undermines our argument.
I'm fed up of being polite, all it results in is being milked for tax by the selfish and thankless generation above.
Comments
That's why I find it evil to be taxing the poorest more, to redistribute to the wealthiest.
Why do you not object to that?
Remember:
There is a small but solid and lead for "the 2016 vote was a mistake." Overall, embracing it would do more harm than good for Labour.
There's a widespread sense that it's not going well.
(Polling data here: https://whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/)
There is a chunky group who loudly fear Breturn, and a small (but loud) group who would rejoin tomorrow.
So what Starmer needs to do is simple, but dishonest.
1 Blame the problems on Johnson's Brexit. The problem wasn't with the public, it was with BoJo.
2 Suggest super-reasonable co-operation to make trading more workable. The TCA framework allows for this. These will be mostly on the EU's terms, but that doesn't need to be said. Concentrate on the benefits for British people, so that the government look like the idealogues.
3 Don't talk about the endpoint. The endpoint is obvious, which is why Johnson fears it. But as a country, we're not ready for it yet. If you must, talk about keeping options open for future generations.
Trouble is, that requires Starmer to be dishonest, and hard FBPEers to be patient. Neither of which is likely. Which will make it all more painful than it needs to be.
If I was the chancellor I would announce the 1% NI rise and apply NI to all pensioners who are in work
Additionally, I would at the same time announce the end of the triple lock with a rise of circa 3% for 2022
And I would leave the UC uplift of £20 in place, it is the right thing to do
And it would be amusing to see the daily mail throw all its toys out with the pram in fury
I actually thought what Theresa May proposed in 2017 was quite sensible, but the reaction showed just how illogical the discourse is.
If starmer stood down who would seriously do a better job or engage with the country ?
Labour just seems to be a disparate group of single issue obsessives under one overarching umbrella. No cohesive vision.
While simultaneously declining in the Waitrose-nimby belt.
If so there will come a tipping point when they switch to supporting taxes on expensive property.
However, Aside from not being the Tories what do labour stand for. What will they do for communities like mine ? At least the Tories talk about levelling up and seem to do things on it.
Which would mean Neil Kinnock.
Luke Akehurst
@lukeakehurst
·
17h
Its simply absurd to expect Labour to tolerate, let alone fund, a youth section that is openly attacking the party and damaging its electoral interests or indulging the promotion of policy stances that embarrass the party or are antithetical to our values
adrian mcmenamin
@adrianmcmenamin
Replying to
@lukeakehurst
and
@charleswhite3
Absolutely - there is difference between having ideas that push boundaries or running campaigns that raise eyebrows and being a magnet for the tiny number of Stalin-fanciers aged under 26
It's also interesting to note that this policy isn't going to simply be accepted. It's got life long Tory voters cutting up their membership cards. As I said yesterday, Theresa May lost because the average age of becoming a Tory voters went up to 55, Boris won a majority by bringing it back down to 39. He can't lose working age people from his electoral coalition because the majority goes with them. The Tory reliance on old wankers for votes will result in Labour winning 50%+ working age voters and 300+ seats.
That's like saying you shouldn't have car insurance because you might not crash.
1. Seems perfectly reasonable to me; 'oven-ready deal' and all that
2. The benefits to the British people were woefully undersold by Cameron and his team
3. Sounds sensible.
Still fighting each other and looking inwards
Edit - well, it nearly worked.
There are multiple competing groups with different desired outcomes
- The elderly, who may, or may not, need care in their old age
- Their heirs, who understandably would rather inherit more, rather than less, and no longer have the family structure, capability or desire to care for their parents as was more general historically.
- The tax payer, who picks up the bill for the elderly who either haven't or couldn't save for their care and any gaps brought about by defending their heir's inheritance (often dressed up in more emotive terms).
I fear general taxation will prove to be the path of least resistance.
I like that insurance policy idea floated last night, a bit like life insurance for people with mortgages. The earlier you start the policy the cheaper it is and fixed for life etc... I'd be happy to do that at £20-30 per month.
Do you think that 'brilliant, innovative' people should have a decent standard of living ?
If you want brilliance and innovation you have to be prepared to pay for it.
PB is full of people boasting about how much they earn and the posho restaurants they go to.
Well I'm on the side of the 'brilliant, innovative' people getting a pay rise and the boasters getting the bill.
No it is not.
Fuck the young am I right?
So if labour costs rise to those levels, quality will go down not up. It is not just a question of being prepared to pay more get better quality and fairness in all sectors, particularly restaurants.
I was back in my actual hometown over the Bank Holiday. It's a lovely place, but it got big because the Royal Navy needed it, and the RN doesn't really need it any more. And it's sadder than I remember it as a result.
And one hard thing is for a town to reinvent itself. But the other hard thing is disentangling nostalgia for the place from nostalgia for my youth.
Tax rises, tuition fees, environmental collapse, pensions probably gone by the time we retire, transport costs, housing…
We are screwed over at every turn!
Presumably no over 50s allower tomorrow for 'Trendy Sunday' when you and your pals go.
India will probably still be batting though 😈
These are people who aren't exactly natural Labour voters either. I'd guess at maybe a third having voted Tory and a third Labour in 2019 which is pretty representative for my age group.
If the Tories plough ahead despite working age people being against it the 2023/4 election is suddenly in play where it hasn't been until now. It could push the age of Tory voting up to 58-61 IMO which will put Labour on 300-310 seats. It would be a clear case of the government losing rather than Labour winning, all they need to do is oppose the NI rise, don't even bother offering an alternative. Just hammer the point of hitting working age people at the worst possible time.
On a similar them Mrs DA opined this morning that the 'leak' about the queen's funeral was to soften us because she's looking a bit peaky and might kark it imminently.
The interface between healthcare and social care I agree is important.
The press are too dumb to spot it, but this doesn’t exactly fit with the government’s levelling up agenda.
I’m reminded of Blair who said that whilst policies in isolation might be popular, as a package they are not. And the package to me doesn’t look very appealing.
https://www.brooksmacdonald.com/~/media/Files/B/Brooks-Macdonald-V4/documents/int-gen-wealth/Intergen-Wlth-Transf-Summ.pdf
They bought all the property, pulled up the ladder, leeched off young people for rent and now are leeching off us again to pay for their care.
Not a single person who supports this NI rise has been able to answer why a retired person with £80k in gross income will get £60.5k net (and receive ~£9k in benefits) while a working person on the same gross income will get £55k net and no benefits.
The whole system is stacked against us and I do fear that this will become the start of a brain drain from the UK as people decide they've had enough of being milked by the old who neglected to save for their old age.
1% to pay for social care.
1% to pay the funeral costs.
Tories are always the party of preserving property wealth and estates first, if you want to switch taxes from income to wealth you are a Liberal if you want to tax both more a socialist.
If it leads to MaxPB and co going to Davey's LDs fine, I am sure he will welcome their support and they are basically classical liberals not Tories and Conservatives anyway.
Longer term some system of voluntary private insurance secured on property for social care is the way
Like Swindon, the clue is in its supposed assets starting with a list of other places in the region that you can easily drive to
Max's vote, and that of Tory voters like him, could of course make a difference.
And what's the timeframe for this? The next election might be a way off, but it's not that far away, as BoJo boosters like to point out.
But then you call us "old wankers", and various other forms of abuse. So we ignore you.
I'd rather be an old pleasant wanker than a young unpleasant wanker, frankly.
We all used to critisise the Corbyn fan club, for being way more interested in ideological purity, than the pragmatism required to actually wield power.
However I would rather lose on a Tory platform than win on a Liberal one
I would also take to task your attitude to the elderly many of whom suffer health issues consistent with ageing as quite unpleasant and to be honest rather surprising
I talk about this a lot, but monetary policy has played a big part in this. I’ve despaired at house prices where I live. The flip side is that my parents own their home, which I also live in. There’s a bit of me that thinks “I’ve been screwed by low interest rates and QE, so I bloody well deserve a decent inheritance.”
Of course, there are some people in my area who won’t be getting an inheritance. Why should they have to pay more tax for my benefit?
This is a complex subject with lots of nuances. It’s also something that we don’t like talking about. Sadly our politicians and, especially the media, aren’t grown up enough to talk about it sensibly.
Any mention of housing, or tuition fees and you get laughed out of the room. It's pathetic.
Trudeau & O’Toole both now ~evens for most seats, although liquidity is a bit pants.
Credit to @Quincel for tipping Con @3/1
Seriously, I feel that it has been and I don't feel good about it. OTOH I am the parent or the younger generation and feel its pain.
Local authorities have effectively been left with the responsibility, without the power, and central government the power without responsibility.
That makes for tactical advantages, but does not make for effective democracy.
Which would not be good for its economy or for its society in general.
Look at the triple lock situation. It’s obvious that pensions shouldn’t go up by 8%, yet Labour play the “you’re breaking a manifesto pledge” card.
But if you proposed something like that for the elderly, they would be up in arms.
That the average pensioner now has higher income, net of housing costs, than the average economically active person is a striking statistic
Personally at this stage I'd like a Labour/Lib Dem Government, Labour have too many morons on the backbenches that need to be restrained/removed and the Lib Dems can't possibly get enough seats on their own.
Then maybe Johnson will leave for good and the Tories can go back to being moderately sensible and we can go back to boring politics again.
I'm only in the position to buy because I happened to very fortunately inherit money from a relative (as did my brother). If we were not in that position we wouldn't be able to buy a house despite our combined salaries being well over £100K a year, now you tell me if that is right
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/09/netherlands-pre-qualifying-2021.html
So making health and social care part of the same system might be the only way to make it work.
@MaxPB stop being a dick. I, and many others, basically agree with what you’re saying, but the way you say it seriously undermines our argument.
Martin Lewis has made some great videos on the subject and argues we should just call it a graduate contribution and not even refer to the amount borrowed at all.
Yet I see comments about young people being lazy, sitting indoors all day playing PlayStation, not working during the pandemic and it just gets a pass.
Bunch of hypocrites the lot
I have been chairman of our PTA, chairman of the group scout council, founder and treasurer of the local community hall, fund raising chairman in charge of a major festival attracting over 20,000 people with all proceeds going to youth charities and last, but not least, organising visits to our town from deprived children who actually ran into the sea fully clothed never having seen or heard of it
Maybe you need to be careful how you throw accusations around
Brexit and Trump have surely shown that directly insulting the people whose views you want to change leads them to double down rather than listen and change.
Those views, however, absolutely do need to be challenged more politely, and that the older generation are still surprised that the younger generation is angry and frustrated is in itself a sign that they were not listening before it got to this stage either.
Finally, I dont think this is a left v right issue but a young/middle aged v pensioner one. Aiui Labour have not supported the end of the triple lock, nor fairness in inter generational taxation. The people angry about it on here range from CHB on the left to centrists like myself and CR, PT and Max on the right. Neither Labour or Tories are with us and whilst it is possible Labour get there, personally I think that is unlikely to happen.
Though being renters it will come off their deposit.
In what world does it make sense that he pays less tax than a 40 year old on the same salary as his gross income?
16% of retired people are higher rate tax payers, 3% are additional rate tax payers. These are people who not only have significant wealth, they also have significant income and little to no outgoings given they are retired.
All I'm asking for is, before working age people are hit for yet another tax, the wealthy of your own generation are asked to stump up first. We could easily raise £20bn per year from that cohort with state pension withdrawal higher income tax rates on pensions and "unearned income" and merging NI with income tax. Instead working families are being hit for £1000 per year at a time when finances are already stretched and inflation is shooting up.
So, there's a lottery over the inheritance. A small % of the families who might have inherited property get hit and the others don't.*
The lottery is even more iniquitous since some can prove their care needs fall under NHS duty of care and they are fully funded (at least for the care bit, not the B&B bit iirc). Dementia doesn't. But other illnesses do.
* and obviously the only families where this is an issue are property owning middle classes with assets. Large numbers don't have this issue.