Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Yes to an extent but also if they build too much on the greenbelt in the South they will also lose votes to the LDs in the South, certainly locally as they did in areas like Guildford and Chelmsford and Tunbridge Wells in May, maybe then nationally too. Immigration also needs to be reduced to cut demand too.
Plenty of young people also inherit from grandparents as well as parents now or get gifts from parents in their 20s and 30s, remember in the South their parents also likely have more savings not tied up in their house.
“Plenty of young people” in the top 5-10% maybe, definitely not close to the average person. That’s the problem, and why Labour and the hypocrite Lib Dems (in favour of unlimited immigration and no house building) are taking Tory votes there. We need a strategy to win them back.
Mr Sandpit, why do you go in for making up lies about the Lib Dems?
Just wondering....
TBF he's slightly insulated from the realities of UK politics, as he's been ex pat for some time, I think. Accusations of dishonesty are a bit harsh.
It’s never worth engaging with people who make personal attacks. It lowers the tone of what’s a very friendly site, and I try my best to avoid it.
I see the lead scientist for the AZ vaccine is playing down the idea of Boosters for this autumn/winter as immunity levels are holding up 'well'. Define 'well', immunity levels are dropping over time and do you want that heading into winter with a variant that has 1000 times more viral shedding than the original strain?
You also have to remember efficacy rates for most vaccines are usually much lower than the Covid vaccines we have created, so it could be that scientists are still using that as a benchmark when it comes to decision making. How low will they let it go in regards to Covid?
She's also pushing the movement for our vaccines going to other countries instead of a booster campaign. This I suspect is a prelude to the JCVI decision with them making the recommendation not to offer boosters to the majority of the adult population.
Let's hope the government stand firm and carry out the booster program alongside Flu. I think Javid will.
Not giving boosters likely means killing a few thousand oldies this winter.
For which the government will be blamed not the scientists.
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Inheritance is worse than a red herring, its virtually irrelevant to almost everyone. Without wanting to get personal HYUFD's obsession with it not only shows that he's completely out of touch, has never had to work to make ends meet and worry about paying the bills each week, but I rather suspect he must be an only child.
Because when you actually stop and think about what 'inheritance' means to most people it is absolutely sod all. It certainly doesn't pay for a house.
A typical set of grandparents nowadays who might die in their 90s could be leaving behind: ~3-4 children themselves in their 60s+ ~8-10 grandchildren adults ~10-20+ great-grandchildren That's a total of ~20-30 heirs. If you divide a £550,000 house evenly between 30 people even without any legal fees or costs whatsoever then that comes to ~£18k each. An £18k inheritance isn't enough to pay for a deposit on a £550k house, let alone pay for a house.
Even if you forget the great-grandchildren and only split it between the children and grandchildren, its still not even a 10% deposit each.
The notion that an inheritance pays for a house is complete nonsense. It may pay for a deposit if you're very, very lucky - but then we should be stopping to think how we can make sure that working people can accrue a deposit off their own efforts.
PS for the Queen as an example, who is not an atypical 90+ year old when it comes to kids and grandkids etc she has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. That's 23 heirs she has and most grandparents her age would have around that mark. And that's not counting any in-laws either.
I am not an only child.
On my mothers side for example, her parents ie my grandparents had only 2 children and 4 grandchildren when they died.
My father's father was much wealthier, a multimillionaire but most of his wealth went to my father's stepmother and my father's half sister and family.
As TLG has shown over half of first time buyers get parental or grandparental help with a deposit now so far from being out of touch most buyers do not buy completely buy themselves
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Inheritance is worse than a red herring, its virtually irrelevant to almost everyone. Without wanting to get personal HYUFD's obsession with it not only shows that he's completely out of touch, has never had to work to make ends meet and worry about paying the bills each week, but I rather suspect he must be an only child.
Because when you actually stop and think about what 'inheritance' means to most people it is absolutely sod all. It certainly doesn't pay for a house.
A typical set of grandparents nowadays who might die in their 90s could be leaving behind: ~3-4 children themselves in their 60s+ ~8-10 grandchildren adults ~10-20+ great-grandchildren That's a total of ~20-30 heirs. If you divide a £550,000 house evenly between 30 people even without any legal fees or costs whatsoever then that comes to ~£18k each. An £18k inheritance isn't enough to pay for a deposit on a £550k house, let alone pay for a house.
Even if you forget the great-grandchildren and only split it between the children and grandchildren, its still not even a 10% deposit each.
The notion that an inheritance pays for a house is complete nonsense. It may pay for a deposit if you're very, very lucky - but then we should be stopping to think how we can make sure that working people can accrue a deposit off their own efforts.
PS for the Queen as an example, who is not an atypical 90+ year old when it comes to kids and grandkids etc she has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. That's 23 heirs she has and most grandparents her age would have around that mark. And that's not counting any in-laws either.
Whilst not disagreeing with your overall sentiment I think you make a number of basic flaws in your reasoning there.
The vast majority of people do not have 3-4 children. Indeed birthrates have been dropping for a long time and are well below the 2.2 or whatever it is we need to have a stable population. Hence the need for importing labour. The Royal Family are not typical in terms of their numbers of children. Many families don't even get to the 'heir and a spare' stage.
Also the idea that people split inheritance evenly amongst all descendants is clearly rubbish. At very best on your example - which again is massively inflated - they would probably leave inheritance only to the adults. So generally you are looking at that money being slit between perhaps 7 or 8 people at very best. Call it 10 if you are being generous. At £55K each that is certainly enough to help with a deposit on a house and get people on the ladder.
Will this poll change the vote of Tuesday for Johnson's NI levy plans?
There was no reason to push through such a tax rise without proper discussion or debate in the House. Why couldn't it wait for the budget? Then it could have killed off Sunaks prospects, not Johnsons.
Why do you think Rishi pushed it through so quickly.
I'm at a loss as to what can be announced in the next budget as beyond pension (contributions) there is no where else that money can be grabbed from
He'll have the OBR report to play with. If the commentators on economic pages are correct then OBR may give him a few billion extra leeway on their earlier expectations. So someone somewhere will be getting some cash.
NICOLA Sturgeon has flatly dismissed criticism of her controversial gender reforms as “not valid” just days after being accused of ignoring women’s concerns.
The First Minister urged people to focus on “real threats” to women’s safety and women’s rights, not moves to help trans people change their gender in the eyes of the law.
However Ms Sturgeon also suggested that, with some SNP ministers uneasy about the change, there could be a free vote at Holyrood on it, rather than a whipped one.
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
There are working class graduates too! However for political analysis, there is too much focus on working class, when what will count electorally is workers, whatever their class.
If you have a degree you can never be fully working class, certainly not in terms of education and culture.
Which is it? Most people with a degree can't afford a £900k home.
AR says if you can't afford it you are not middle class. HYUFD says if you have a degree you can't be working class.
It is all nonsense.
HYUFD has his psephological strengths but so much of his dogmatic posting is just horseshit.
I've got two degrees and a white collar job and I'm as working class as they come. It's a cultural thing; where you were born, what your parents did, what your friends and family's occupations are, the school you went to, how you were brought up, how you see the world.
It's not better than being middle-class. There are aspects of the working-class culture and outlook I dislike. There are elements of middle-classness I like and have adopted. Through uni I have met and made good middle-class friends. But I am undoubtedly still, and will remain until I croak, working class.
It's not just measured in income or qualifications anymore. There's nuance there, shades of grey. Stuff that HYUFD doesn't do very well.
'I've got two degrees and a white collar job and I'm as working class as they come' no you are middle class both by education and job.
Just because you maybe working class by background does not mean you are working class now and it is patronising to those who are still working class to suggest you are
I'm very glad that I stuck to my own principles and called out the party I used to support, instead of swapping my principles when the party changes theirs.
Can the last PB Tory please turn off the light.
The party you used to support has had a long history of switching taxation from direct taxes to indirect regressive taxes, to cutting welfare, to helping pensioners at the expense of other groups, to increasing university tuition fees, to limiting taxes on property, to reducing taxes on dividends, to allowing those who have to accumulate more in tax-free investments and savings, to increasing inheritance tax exemptions, to giving contracts to those persons and companies based in tax havens etc.
This sort of behaviour did not start this week. It was supported in all these actions by many Tories, including many PB Tories on here.
Would it be unfair to suggest that, just possibly, it is because it has now hit PB Tories in the pocket, there is such rage?
To be clear, I think that hitting the poorest and the working poor and the young harder than those with wealth and the means to pay is wrong - because it is both unfair, economically counter-productive and does little to solve the social care issue (which covers the disabled as well as the old).
Inter-generational unfairness is a real issue. A sense that the cards seems to be stacked against those who try and do the right thing is widespread, I feel. I sense it. So do my family. We feel that we are mugs and are being taken for mugs. I think that those with savings should use them first to pay for care, when needed, not expect those without to pay to preserve inheritances. But I am not surprised. I am not a Tory supporter and think that, on many levels, this is a poor government, for reasons I have spelt out many times and won't repeat again (its occasional successes - the vaccination programme - notwithstanding).
But it is eye opening to see those who have supported and voted for a Tory party which has had a long history of caring little for the young or the poor or those without means suddenly realise what their party cares about when they are asked to open their wallets.
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Inheritance is worse than a red herring, its virtually irrelevant to almost everyone. Without wanting to get personal HYUFD's obsession with it not only shows that he's completely out of touch, has never had to work to make ends meet and worry about paying the bills each week, but I rather suspect he must be an only child.
Because when you actually stop and think about what 'inheritance' means to most people it is absolutely sod all. It certainly doesn't pay for a house.
A typical set of grandparents nowadays who might die in their 90s could be leaving behind: ~3-4 children themselves in their 60s+ ~8-10 grandchildren adults ~10-20+ great-grandchildren That's a total of ~20-30 heirs. If you divide a £550,000 house evenly between 30 people even without any legal fees or costs whatsoever then that comes to ~£18k each. An £18k inheritance isn't enough to pay for a deposit on a £550k house, let alone pay for a house.
Even if you forget the great-grandchildren and only split it between the children and grandchildren, its still not even a 10% deposit each.
The notion that an inheritance pays for a house is complete nonsense. It may pay for a deposit if you're very, very lucky - but then we should be stopping to think how we can make sure that working people can accrue a deposit off their own efforts.
PS for the Queen as an example, who is not an atypical 90+ year old when it comes to kids and grandkids etc she has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. That's 23 heirs she has and most grandparents her age would have around that mark. And that's not counting any in-laws either.
As a parent (77) of 3 children (46 to 55) and 4 grandchildren (18 to 8) I can say that any inheritance after the possibility of paying several years care will not purchase a house nor would it need to as all my children have their own homes, though the one living in Vancouver rents
I remember my late father in law cautioning many years ago that it is best to bequeath money to your children than grandchildren as they will be able to make the best decision about giving their children a helping hand
I would say we do need to agree that providing a deposit for a London home is vastly more different than most parts of the country and of course grandparents may well gift money to their grandchildren whilst they are alive for education
I would say though that the there is a wide recognition that those who have their own home should not have to use it for social care and both Liz Kendal and Starmer were very forceful on that point this week. Indeed I do not know of any political party that does expect home owners to pay for social care from their home in old age, though of course at present they do down to £23,000
My objection to this week's announcement is the the tax base was far too narrow, unfair and will not raise sufficient funds
I see the lead scientist for the AZ vaccine is playing down the idea of Boosters for this autumn/winter as immunity levels are holding up 'well'. Define 'well', immunity levels are dropping over time and do you want that heading into winter with a variant that has 1000 times more viral shedding than the original strain?
You also have to remember efficacy rates for most vaccines are usually much lower than the Covid vaccines we have created, so it could be that scientists are still using that as a benchmark when it comes to decision making. How low will they let it go in regards to Covid?
She's also pushing the movement for our vaccines going to other countries instead of a booster campaign. This I suspect is a prelude to the JCVI decision with them making the recommendation not to offer boosters to the majority of the adult population.
Let's hope the government stand firm and carry out the booster program alongside Flu. I think Javid will.
Not giving boosters likely means killing a few thousand oldies this winter.
For which the government will be blamed not the scientists.
I think there may be some misunderstanding of Dame Gilbert's comments. She saying the immuno suppressed and the elderly should get a boost but not a general boost for all adults.
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Inheritance is worse than a red herring, its virtually irrelevant to almost everyone. Without wanting to get personal HYUFD's obsession with it not only shows that he's completely out of touch, has never had to work to make ends meet and worry about paying the bills each week, but I rather suspect he must be an only child.
Because when you actually stop and think about what 'inheritance' means to most people it is absolutely sod all. It certainly doesn't pay for a house.
A typical set of grandparents nowadays who might die in their 90s could be leaving behind: ~3-4 children themselves in their 60s+ ~8-10 grandchildren adults ~10-20+ great-grandchildren That's a total of ~20-30 heirs. If you divide a £550,000 house evenly between 30 people even without any legal fees or costs whatsoever then that comes to ~£18k each. An £18k inheritance isn't enough to pay for a deposit on a £550k house, let alone pay for a house.
Even if you forget the great-grandchildren and only split it between the children and grandchildren, its still not even a 10% deposit each.
The notion that an inheritance pays for a house is complete nonsense. It may pay for a deposit if you're very, very lucky - but then we should be stopping to think how we can make sure that working people can accrue a deposit off their own efforts.
PS for the Queen as an example, who is not an atypical 90+ year old when it comes to kids and grandkids etc she has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. That's 23 heirs she has and most grandparents her age would have around that mark. And that's not counting any in-laws either.
??? That seems overly complicated - Just split it between the kids. They in turn can give to their kids.
But that's the point. If it just goes to the aged 60+ kids then nothing is left for the grandkids (or later) to get on the property ladder.
If the aged 60+ kids take it and give some to their own kids, then it still won't be enough to pay for a deposit let alone a house for the grandkids.
Either way the idea of some windfall inheritance only really works if you're an only child and its not being split any further.
Different people have different amounts of families members. Bluntly you can either pass on your genes or your wealth
If you're really lucky you'll have a childless uncle or aunt xD
Looking for godparents for your children? Think of who you know, trust (Dave's mistake) and aren't likely to have children of their own.
I'm very glad that I stuck to my own principles and called out the party I used to support, instead of swapping my principles when the party changes theirs.
Can the last PB Tory please turn off the light.
The party you used to support has had a long history of switching taxation from direct taxes to indirect regressive taxes, to cutting welfare, to helping pensioners at the expense of other groups, to increasing university tuition fees, to limiting taxes on property, to reducing taxes on dividends, to allowing those who have to accumulate more in tax-free investments and savings, to increasing inheritance tax exemptions, to giving contracts to those persons and companies based in tax havens etc.
This sort of behaviour did not start this week. It was supported in all these actions by many Tories, including many PB Tories on here.
Would it be unfair to suggest that, just possibly, it is because it has now hit PB Tories in the pocket, there is such rage?
To be clear, I think that hitting the poorest and the working poor and the young harder than those with wealth and the means to pay is wrong - because it is both unfair, economically counter-productive and does little to solve the social care issue (which covers the disabled as well as the old).
Inter-generational unfairness is a real issue. A sense that the cards seems to be stacked against those who try and do the right thing is widespread, I feel. I sense it. So do my family. We feel that we are mugs and are being taken for mugs. I think that those with savings should use them first to pay for care, when needed, not expect those without to pay to preserve inheritances. But I am not surprised. I am not a Tory supporter and think that, on many levels, this is a poor government, for reasons I have spelt out many times and won't repeat again (its occasional successes - the vaccination programme - notwithstanding).
But it is eye opening to see those who have supported and voted for a Tory party which has had a long history of caring little for the young or the poor or those without means suddenly realise what their party cares about when they are asked to open their wallets.
Indeed, it is farcical for some high earning 30 or 40 year old PB Tories who happily backed Cameron cutting public spending and pursuing austerity and increasing tuition fees and cutting IHT without a problem while keeping their taxes low now claiming to be champions of the poor and working class because they are facing a 1.25% rise in their NI bills to pay for the NHS and social care!!
I'm very glad that I stuck to my own principles and called out the party I used to support, instead of swapping my principles when the party changes theirs.
Can the last PB Tory please turn off the light.
The party you used to support has had a long history of switching taxation from direct taxes to indirect regressive taxes, to cutting welfare, to helping pensioners at the expense of other groups, to increasing university tuition fees, to limiting taxes on property, to reducing taxes on dividends, to allowing those who have to accumulate more in tax-free investments and savings, to increasing inheritance tax exemptions, to giving contracts to those persons and companies based in tax havens etc.
This sort of behaviour did not start this week. It was supported in all these actions by many Tories, including many PB Tories on here.
Would it be unfair to suggest that, just possibly, it is because it has now hit PB Tories in the pocket, there is such rage?
To be clear, I think that hitting the poorest and the working poor and the young harder than those with wealth and the means to pay is wrong - because it is both unfair, economically counter-productive and does little to solve the social care issue (which covers the disabled as well as the old).
Inter-generational unfairness is a real issue. A sense that the cards seems to be stacked against those who try and do the right thing is widespread, I feel. I sense it. So do my family. We feel that we are mugs and are being taken for mugs. I think that those with savings should use them first to pay for care, when needed, not expect those without to pay to preserve inheritances. But I am not surprised. I am not a Tory supporter and think that, on many levels, this is a poor government, for reasons I have spelt out many times and won't repeat again (its occasional successes - the vaccination programme - notwithstanding).
But it is eye opening to see those who have supported and voted for a Tory party which has had a long history of caring little for the young or the poor or those without means suddenly realise what their party cares about when they are asked to open their wallets.
Indeed, it is farcical for some high earning 30 or 40 year old PB Tories who happily backed Cameron cutting public spending and austerity and increasing tuition fees and cutting IHT without a problem while keeping their taxes low now claiming to be champions of the poor and working class because they are facing a 1.25% rise in their NI bills to pay for the NHS and social care!!
The government is desperate for money to pay for the gargantuan errors of big state intervention of the last 18 months. Test and trace. Furlough fraud. The numbers are simply enormous.
This is simply the corollary. It was always going to be."
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Inheritance is worse than a red herring, its virtually irrelevant to almost everyone. Without wanting to get personal HYUFD's obsession with it not only shows that he's completely out of touch, has never had to work to make ends meet and worry about paying the bills each week, but I rather suspect he must be an only child.
Because when you actually stop and think about what 'inheritance' means to most people it is absolutely sod all. It certainly doesn't pay for a house.
A typical set of grandparents nowadays who might die in their 90s could be leaving behind: ~3-4 children themselves in their 60s+ ~8-10 grandchildren adults ~10-20+ great-grandchildren That's a total of ~20-30 heirs. If you divide a £550,000 house evenly between 30 people even without any legal fees or costs whatsoever then that comes to ~£18k each. An £18k inheritance isn't enough to pay for a deposit on a £550k house, let alone pay for a house.
Even if you forget the great-grandchildren and only split it between the children and grandchildren, its still not even a 10% deposit each.
The notion that an inheritance pays for a house is complete nonsense. It may pay for a deposit if you're very, very lucky - but then we should be stopping to think how we can make sure that working people can accrue a deposit off their own efforts.
PS for the Queen as an example, who is not an atypical 90+ year old when it comes to kids and grandkids etc she has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. That's 23 heirs she has and most grandparents her age would have around that mark. And that's not counting any in-laws either.
As a parent (77) of 3 children (46 to 55) and 4 grandchildren (18 to 8) I can say that any inheritance after the possibility of paying several years care will not purchase a house nor would it need to as all my children have their own homes, though the one living in Vancouver rents
I remember my late father in law cautioning many years ago that it is best to bequeath money to your children than grandchildren as they will be able to make the best decision about giving their children a helping hand
I would say we do need to agree that providing a deposit for a London home is vastly more different than most parts of the country and of course grandparents may well gift money to their grandchildren whilst they are alive for education
I would say though that the there is a wide recognition that those who have their own home should not have to use it for social care and both Liz Kendal and Starmer were very forceful on that point this week. Indeed I do not know of any political party that does expect home owners to pay for social care from their home in old age, though of course at present they do down to £23,000
My objection to this week's announcement is the the tax base was far too narrow, unfair and will not raise sufficient funds
You say "will not raise sufficient funds" yet argue down-thread that you don't want the £20 UB temporary increase to be withdrawn as planned? Are you arguing for a permanent re-rating of this benefit? If so, then the black hole is mightily larger.
I see the lead scientist for the AZ vaccine is playing down the idea of Boosters for this autumn/winter as immunity levels are holding up 'well'. Define 'well', immunity levels are dropping over time and do you want that heading into winter with a variant that has 1000 times more viral shedding than the original strain?
You also have to remember efficacy rates for most vaccines are usually much lower than the Covid vaccines we have created, so it could be that scientists are still using that as a benchmark when it comes to decision making. How low will they let it go in regards to Covid?
She's also pushing the movement for our vaccines going to other countries instead of a booster campaign. This I suspect is a prelude to the JCVI decision with them making the recommendation not to offer boosters to the majority of the adult population.
Let's hope the government stand firm and carry out the booster program alongside Flu. I think Javid will.
Not giving boosters likely means killing a few thousand oldies this winter.
For which the government will be blamed not the scientists.
And rightly so. The JCVI and so forth is stuffed full of borderline antivaxxers and bleeding hearts.
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Inheritance is worse than a red herring, its virtually irrelevant to almost everyone. Without wanting to get personal HYUFD's obsession with it not only shows that he's completely out of touch, has never had to work to make ends meet and worry about paying the bills each week, but I rather suspect he must be an only child.
Because when you actually stop and think about what 'inheritance' means to most people it is absolutely sod all. It certainly doesn't pay for a house.
A typical set of grandparents nowadays who might die in their 90s could be leaving behind: ~3-4 children themselves in their 60s+ ~8-10 grandchildren adults ~10-20+ great-grandchildren That's a total of ~20-30 heirs. If you divide a £550,000 house evenly between 30 people even without any legal fees or costs whatsoever then that comes to ~£18k each. An £18k inheritance isn't enough to pay for a deposit on a £550k house, let alone pay for a house.
Even if you forget the great-grandchildren and only split it between the children and grandchildren, its still not even a 10% deposit each.
The notion that an inheritance pays for a house is complete nonsense. It may pay for a deposit if you're very, very lucky - but then we should be stopping to think how we can make sure that working people can accrue a deposit off their own efforts.
PS for the Queen as an example, who is not an atypical 90+ year old when it comes to kids and grandkids etc she has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. That's 23 heirs she has and most grandparents her age would have around that mark. And that's not counting any in-laws either.
Whilst not disagreeing with your overall sentiment I think you make a number of basic flaws in your reasoning there.
The vast majority of people do not have 3-4 children. Indeed birthrates have been dropping for a long time and are well below the 2.2 or whatever it is we need to have a stable population. Hence the need for importing labour. The Royal Family are not typical in terms of their numbers of children. Many families don't even get to the 'heir and a spare' stage.
Also the idea that people split inheritance evenly amongst all descendants is clearly rubbish. At very best on your example - which again is massively inflated - they would probably leave inheritance only to the adults. So generally you are looking at that money being slit between perhaps 7 or 8 people at very best. Call it 10 if you are being generous. At £55K each that is certainly enough to help with a deposit on a house and get people on the ladder.
Surely though in most cases where there is a significant sum to distribute it is because the person who died is very old (parents who die young will not leave as much) and those inheriting will be in their 60s who are looking at retiring themselves and have paid off their mortgage. Of course they can redistribute to their children but then it is being diluted again.
A few days ago I posted here details from the ONS. I assumed the average age of having children was 30, then looked at the life expectancy of a 30 year old, then took into account both parents have to die before you inherit. That hit an average age of the last one to die of 92 making the inheritor 62. Not someone looking to buy their first home hopefully.
Mr. Eagles, ironic, given the staggering proportion of taxes now spent on the NHS.
Though that's a bit of a misleading stat, like the one about the proportion of the EU budget that goes on farmers. It reflects the lack of spending on other stuff more than the amount of spending on the NHS / farming.
It's just that everything apart from the NHS and pensions (and sort of schools for a bit) has been squeezed pretty ruthlessly for a decade now. (And that's before Rishi's spending review.)
On current trends, the UK state will soon largely consist of the NHS, pensions, Priti Patel standing on the cliffs at Dover shouting at people to make them go away and a national flagship. There will be no money for anything else.
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
There are working class graduates too! However for political analysis, there is too much focus on working class, when what will count electorally is workers, whatever their class.
If you have a degree you can never be fully working class, certainly not in terms of education and culture.
Which is it? Most people with a degree can't afford a £900k home.
AR says if you can't afford it you are not middle class. HYUFD says if you have a degree you can't be working class.
It is all nonsense.
HYUFD has his psephological strengths but so much of his dogmatic posting is just horseshit.
I've got two degrees and a white collar job and I'm as working class as they come. It's a cultural thing; where you were born, what your parents did, what your friends and family's occupations are, the school you went to, how you were brought up, how you see the world.
It's not better than being middle-class. There are aspects of the working-class culture and outlook I dislike. There are elements of middle-classness I like and have adopted. Through uni I have met and made good middle-class friends. But I am undoubtedly still, and will remain until I croak, working class.
It's not just measured in income or qualifications anymore. There's nuance there, shades of grey. Stuff that HYUFD doesn't do very well.
There's an old Lancashire saying, too. Clogs to clogs in three generations. Not every family, of course, but see the first in this years 'A House through Time' on BBC. The first family living in the selected house did exactly that.
Wasn't that the second family, the first one became Magistrate for Leeds and got a death sentence reduced to live in a colony.
You're quite right. Sorry. The second was a classic example though. And to be fair the last one they quoted, the Nicholson's, worked steadily up the social scale. Wonder what the current generation is doing!
I wonder how they do the research for the programme though; they must draw quite a few blanks. Same with the ancestry programmes on ITV; although apparently they tried with Michael Parkinson and didn't think a long succession of coal-miners would make programme. Someone must have been interested in English etc, though; read somewhere that when someone 'rose from the ranks' checking found a great-aunt who was a teacher, even a Sunday school one, or a great-uncle a foreman.
I'm very glad that I stuck to my own principles and called out the party I used to support, instead of swapping my principles when the party changes theirs.
Can the last PB Tory please turn off the light.
The party you used to support has had a long history of switching taxation from direct taxes to indirect regressive taxes, to cutting welfare, to helping pensioners at the expense of other groups, to increasing university tuition fees, to limiting taxes on property, to reducing taxes on dividends, to allowing those who have to accumulate more in tax-free investments and savings, to increasing inheritance tax exemptions, to giving contracts to those persons and companies based in tax havens etc.
This sort of behaviour did not start this week. It was supported in all these actions by many Tories, including many PB Tories on here.
Would it be unfair to suggest that, just possibly, it is because it has now hit PB Tories in the pocket, there is such rage?
To be clear, I think that hitting the poorest and the working poor and the young harder than those with wealth and the means to pay is wrong - because it is both unfair, economically counter-productive and does little to solve the social care issue (which covers the disabled as well as the old).
Inter-generational unfairness is a real issue. A sense that the cards seems to be stacked against those who try and do the right thing is widespread, I feel. I sense it. So do my family. We feel that we are mugs and are being taken for mugs. I think that those with savings should use them first to pay for care, when needed, not expect those without to pay to preserve inheritances. But I am not surprised. I am not a Tory supporter and think that, on many levels, this is a poor government, for reasons I have spelt out many times and won't repeat again (its occasional successes - the vaccination programme - notwithstanding).
But it is eye opening to see those who have supported and voted for a Tory party which has had a long history of caring little for the young or the poor or those without means suddenly realise what their party cares about when they are asked to open their wallets.
Indeed, it is farcical for some high earning 30 or 40 year old PB Tories who happily backed Cameron cutting public spending and austerity and increasing tuition fees and cutting IHT without a problem while keeping their taxes low now claiming to be champions of the poor and working class because they are facing a 1.25% rise in their NI bills to pay for the NHS and social care!!
The government is desperate for money to pay for the gargantuan errors of big state intervention of the last 18 months. Test and trace. Furlough fraud. The numbers are simply enormous.
This is simply the corollary. It was always going to be."
He is right, except on the fundamental point of "errors" - there is nothing else we could have done. But this can quite plausibly be seen as a sorting out the consequences of covid tax with a "fix social care" badge stuck on it rather than a fix social care tax.
One poll and clearly no real movement to Labour either who are only up 1%.
2% behind for a governing party that has been in power for 11 years is par for the course. No tax rise will ever be popular, this was the least worst. Better to get the difficult financial decisions out of the way now midterm to give the NHS and social care the top up it needs and balance the books and then can go for tax cuts again before the next general election
You are failing to recognise the mood music..the whole thing is a disaster
The polling also shows a rise in income tax, a rise in inheritance tax, a rise in tax on pensions or savings etc would also be unpopular. There is no popular tax for most people.
The only tax that would be popular is a CGT rise or financial investments tax but of course that only raises a limited amount and tax on dividends was raised anyway. After Covid the NHS needs extra funds as does social care and it has to be paid for somehow as does all the extra spending we had as a result of Covid. Balance the books now and then go for tax cuts before the next election.
Thatcher was often far further behind after a decade in power, Labour was often behind by 2008, the equivalent year in terms of their time in power.
Better to get the hard decisions taken now midterm, Thatcher sensibly did not bother too much what midterm polls showed about her government's popularity and nor should Boris.
Remember even Ed Miliband often had a midterm lead over Cameron
Who would have imagined, people don't like tax rises.
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
There are working class graduates too! However for political analysis, there is too much focus on working class, when what will count electorally is workers, whatever their class.
If you have a degree you can never be fully working class, certainly not in terms of education and culture.
Which is it? Most people with a degree can't afford a £900k home.
AR says if you can't afford it you are not middle class. HYUFD says if you have a degree you can't be working class.
It is all nonsense.
HYUFD has his psephological strengths but so much of his dogmatic posting is just horseshit.
I've got two degrees and a white collar job and I'm as working class as they come. It's a cultural thing; where you were born, what your parents did, what your friends and family's occupations are, the school you went to, how you were brought up, how you see the world.
It's not better than being middle-class. There are aspects of the working-class culture and outlook I dislike. There are elements of middle-classness I like and have adopted. Through uni I have met and made good middle-class friends. But I am undoubtedly still, and will remain until I croak, working class.
It's not just measured in income or qualifications anymore. There's nuance there, shades of grey. Stuff that HYUFD doesn't do very well.
'I've got two degrees and a white collar job and I'm as working class as they come' no you are middle class both by education and job.
Just because you maybe working class by background does not mean you are working class now and it is patronising to those who are still working class to suggest you are
Nice dogmatic reply.
Look, I'm sure IRL you're a lovely bloke, and I don't want to get into an online slagging match with some random on the internet. Life's too short and it's a Friday and I know when it comes to stubbornness you put many mules to shame, so I don't want to get into a jaw-clenchingly irritating, ultimately futile back-and-forth with you.
But I will say that what you've written above is laughable.
NICOLA Sturgeon has flatly dismissed criticism of her controversial gender reforms as “not valid” just days after being accused of ignoring women’s concerns.
The First Minister urged people to focus on “real threats” to women’s safety and women’s rights, not moves to help trans people change their gender in the eyes of the law.
However Ms Sturgeon also suggested that, with some SNP ministers uneasy about the change, there could be a free vote at Holyrood on it, rather than a whipped one.
I'm very glad that I stuck to my own principles and called out the party I used to support, instead of swapping my principles when the party changes theirs.
Can the last PB Tory please turn off the light.
The party you used to support has had a long history of switching taxation from direct taxes to indirect regressive taxes, to cutting welfare, to helping pensioners at the expense of other groups, to increasing university tuition fees, to limiting taxes on property, to reducing taxes on dividends, to allowing those who have to accumulate more in tax-free investments and savings, to increasing inheritance tax exemptions, to giving contracts to those persons and companies based in tax havens etc.
This sort of behaviour did not start this week. It was supported in all these actions by many Tories, including many PB Tories on here.
Would it be unfair to suggest that, just possibly, it is because it has now hit PB Tories in the pocket, there is such rage?
To be clear, I think that hitting the poorest and the working poor and the young harder than those with wealth and the means to pay is wrong - because it is both unfair, economically counter-productive and does little to solve the social care issue (which covers the disabled as well as the old).
Inter-generational unfairness is a real issue. A sense that the cards seems to be stacked against those who try and do the right thing is widespread, I feel. I sense it. So do my family. We feel that we are mugs and are being taken for mugs. I think that those with savings should use them first to pay for care, when needed, not expect those without to pay to preserve inheritances. But I am not surprised. I am not a Tory supporter and think that, on many levels, this is a poor government, for reasons I have spelt out many times and won't repeat again (its occasional successes - the vaccination programme - notwithstanding).
But it is eye opening to see those who have supported and voted for a Tory party which has had a long history of caring little for the young or the poor or those without means suddenly realise what their party cares about when they are asked to open their wallets.
Indeed, it is farcical for some high earning 30 or 40 year old PB Tories who happily backed Cameron cutting public spending and austerity and increasing tuition fees and cutting IHT without a problem while keeping their taxes low now claiming to be champions of the poor and working class because they are facing a 1.25% rise in their NI bills to pay for the NHS and social care!!
The government is desperate for money to pay for the gargantuan errors of big state intervention of the last 18 months. Test and trace. Furlough fraud. The numbers are simply enormous.
This is simply the corollary. It was always going to be."
He is right, except on the fundamental point of "errors" - there is nothing else we could have done. But this can quite plausibly be seen as a sorting out the consequences of covid tax with a "fix social care" badge stuck on it rather than a fix social care tax.
Yes but it was not "errors" it was incompetence, sheer fraud graft and chumocracy
Which proves there is a whole heap of opportunity around the social care tax - I suspect it will be a continual issue that slowly chips away at Tory support within the working class.
Separately the administrators of Cleveland Bridge have discovered that there isn't a viable takeover offer. So that is another historic engineering firm gone in a Red Wall seat...
Graduates earning over £27,000 a year are not working class, they are middle class, mainly living in London and other big cities
But they can’t afford to buy a house, which is the root of the problem.
Thatcher knew that people who own houses vote Conservative. If large number of the middle classes can’t afford to buy property, then Conservatives lose elections.
North of the Watford gap they can afford to buy a house, hence the Tory gains in the RedWall in 2019.
South of the Watford gap they can't without an inheritance or gift from their parents, hence London is now majority rent and the safest Labour region in the UK and the Tories made no net gains from Labour and the LDs in the SouthEast in 2019
Correct, so if Conservatives want to gain votes, they need to address the fact that many people can’t buy houses.
Inheritance is a total red herring, thanks to increasing life expectancy, many people now won’t inherit anything until their sixties.
Inheritance is worse than a red herring, its virtually irrelevant to almost everyone. Without wanting to get personal HYUFD's obsession with it not only shows that he's completely out of touch, has never had to work to make ends meet and worry about paying the bills each week, but I rather suspect he must be an only child.
Because when you actually stop and think about what 'inheritance' means to most people it is absolutely sod all. It certainly doesn't pay for a house.
A typical set of grandparents nowadays who might die in their 90s could be leaving behind: ~3-4 children themselves in their 60s+ ~8-10 grandchildren adults ~10-20+ great-grandchildren That's a total of ~20-30 heirs. If you divide a £550,000 house evenly between 30 people even without any legal fees or costs whatsoever then that comes to ~£18k each. An £18k inheritance isn't enough to pay for a deposit on a £550k house, let alone pay for a house.
Even if you forget the great-grandchildren and only split it between the children and grandchildren, its still not even a 10% deposit each.
The notion that an inheritance pays for a house is complete nonsense. It may pay for a deposit if you're very, very lucky - but then we should be stopping to think how we can make sure that working people can accrue a deposit off their own efforts.
PS for the Queen as an example, who is not an atypical 90+ year old when it comes to kids and grandkids etc she has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. That's 23 heirs she has and most grandparents her age would have around that mark. And that's not counting any in-laws either.
As a parent (77) of 3 children (46 to 55) and 4 grandchildren (18 to 8) I can say that any inheritance after the possibility of paying several years care will not purchase a house nor would it need to as all my children have their own homes, though the one living in Vancouver rents
I remember my late father in law cautioning many years ago that it is best to bequeath money to your children than grandchildren as they will be able to make the best decision about giving their children a helping hand
I would say we do need to agree that providing a deposit for a London home is vastly more different than most parts of the country and of course grandparents may well gift money to their grandchildren whilst they are alive for education
I would say though that the there is a wide recognition that those who have their own home should not have to use it for social care and both Liz Kendal and Starmer were very forceful on that point this week. Indeed I do not know of any political party that does expect home owners to pay for social care from their home in old age, though of course at present they do down to £23,000
My objection to this week's announcement is the the tax base was far too narrow, unfair and will not raise sufficient funds
You say "will not raise sufficient funds" yet argue down-thread that you don't want the £20 UB temporary increase to be withdrawn as planned? Are you arguing for a permanent re-rating of this benefit? If so, then the black hole is mightily larger.
*Also highest REF/BXP have polled since December 2020*
And here’s why the whole result wasn’t announced last night.
Utterly disgraceful.
I wouldn't be surprised if REFUK are on 10% within 6 months.
What does it tell us, politically? Conservatives have alienated supporters but Labour remain unconvincing so is RefUK really NOTA or is there something Brexity going on? Earlier in this thread @IanB2 suggested pet-owners were frustrated by post-Brexit problems, and there are also empty shelves in supermarkets.
The government announced tax rises this week. This clearly upset some people who had previously been saying Con to the pollsters. But it’s clear that Labour aren’t capitalising as they might have.
While a vote switching to Labour or Lib Dem is twice as good as a switch to REFUK*, it all helps demolish that Tory majority.
*do they even have policies?
How many seats will they contest? For months people have been combining the Labour and Green vote, yet they deluded themselves into thinking this is anything other than mid-term noise.
The Tories could lose the next election (i.e. be out of office), but that poll changes nothing.
If a Tory voter is pissed off because they wanted a low tax party where are they going to go?
As @Philip_Thompson suggested earlier on this thread, there is now an opportunity for Labour to seize the low tax mantle, although that might involve Keir Starmer announcing a policy.
Arent they too reliant on Public Sector workers to head down the small government route?
Who said anything about small government? There is certainly room to cancel the NI increase because we've done without it up to now. There is probably room to cut the base (not higher) rate of income tax and/or VAT (using our post-Brexit freedom). The aim would be to stimulate economic growth, not choke it off with tax rises and spending cuts.
The beauty from the Labour Party point of view is that there will be significant benefit to the national coffers from the tax rise over the next two years, so there will be scope for Reeves to remove it in a post 2024 GE budget.
The amount going into social care is trivial before October 2023.
Only by creating a big deficit in the process and leading to higher interest rates.
If Labour do not spend more in government (which requires higher taxes) then they would lose even more votes to the Greens on their left.
Though on this poll Sturgeon and Blackford would in effect be Kingmakers and control PM Starmer, Labour would be on 283 seats with the 55 SNP MPs giving Labour its majority and driving the show
And someone called Boris Johnson would lose his seat. Looking at the seat list of Tory losses on this prospect suggests that there is much to play for, that Labour have lost their non big city heartland, and that even with this Tory massacre Labour are nowhere close to a majority.
Is Labour really going to win Kenneth Clarke's old seat?
Rushcliffe - on different and more pro-Labour boundaries - was Labour-held 1966 - 1970.
Comments
For which the government will be blamed not the scientists.
On my mothers side for example, her parents ie my grandparents had only 2 children and 4 grandchildren when they died.
My father's father was much wealthier, a multimillionaire but most of his wealth went to my father's stepmother and my father's half sister and family.
As TLG has shown over half of first time buyers get parental or grandparental help with a deposit now so far from being out of touch most buyers do not buy completely buy themselves
The vast majority of people do not have 3-4 children. Indeed birthrates have been dropping for a long time and are well below the 2.2 or whatever it is we need to have a stable population. Hence the need for importing labour. The Royal Family are not typical in terms of their numbers of children. Many families don't even get to the 'heir and a spare' stage.
Also the idea that people split inheritance evenly amongst all descendants is clearly rubbish. At very best on your example - which again is massively inflated - they would probably leave inheritance only to the adults. So generally you are looking at that money being slit between perhaps 7 or 8 people at very best. Call it 10 if you are being generous. At £55K each that is certainly enough to help with a deposit on a house and get people on the ladder.
The First Minister urged people to focus on “real threats” to women’s safety and women’s rights, not moves to help trans people change their gender in the eyes of the law.
However Ms Sturgeon also suggested that, with some SNP ministers uneasy about the change, there could be a free vote at Holyrood on it, rather than a whipped one.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19571909.nicola-sturgeon-dismisses-concerns-gender-reforms-not-valid/?ref=twtrec
A free vote on a manifesto commitment?
Just because you maybe working class by background does not mean you are working class now and it is patronising to those who are still working class to suggest you are
This sort of behaviour did not start this week. It was supported in all these actions by many Tories, including many PB Tories on here.
Would it be unfair to suggest that, just possibly, it is because it has now hit PB Tories in the pocket, there is such rage?
To be clear, I think that hitting the poorest and the working poor and the young harder than those with wealth and the means to pay is wrong - because it is both unfair, economically counter-productive and does little to solve the social care issue (which covers the disabled as well as the old).
Inter-generational unfairness is a real issue. A sense that the cards seems to be stacked against those who try and do the right thing is widespread, I feel. I sense it. So do my family. We feel that we are mugs and are being taken for mugs. I think that those with savings should use them first to pay for care, when needed, not expect those without to pay to preserve inheritances. But I am not surprised. I am not a Tory supporter and think that, on many levels, this is a poor government, for reasons I have spelt out many times and won't repeat again (its occasional successes - the vaccination programme - notwithstanding).
But it is eye opening to see those who have supported and voted for a Tory party which has had a long history of caring little for the young or the poor or those without means suddenly realise what their party cares about when they are asked to open their wallets.
I remember my late father in law cautioning many years ago that it is best to bequeath money to your children than grandchildren as they will be able to make the best decision about giving their children a helping hand
I would say we do need to agree that providing a deposit for a London home is vastly more different than most parts of the country and of course grandparents may well gift money to their grandchildren whilst they are alive for education
I would say though that the there is a wide recognition that those who have their own home should not have to use it for social care and both Liz Kendal and Starmer were very forceful on that point this week. Indeed I do not know of any political party that does expect home owners to pay for social care from their home in old age, though of course at present they do down to £23,000
My objection to this week's announcement is the the tax base was far too narrow, unfair and will not raise sufficient funds
"You really think this is about social care?
The government is desperate for money to pay for the gargantuan errors of big state intervention of the last 18 months. Test and trace. Furlough fraud. The numbers are simply enormous.
This is simply the corollary. It was always going to be."
A few days ago I posted here details from the ONS. I assumed the average age of having children was 30, then looked at the life expectancy of a 30 year old, then took into account both parents have to die before you inherit. That hit an average age of the last one to die of 92 making the inheritor 62. Not someone looking to buy their first home hopefully.
UK spending on the NHS is reasonably frugal; see for example
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/articles/howdoesukhealthcarespendingcomparewithothercountries/2019-08-29
It's just that everything apart from the NHS and pensions (and sort of schools for a bit) has been squeezed pretty ruthlessly for a decade now. (And that's before Rishi's spending review.)
On current trends, the UK state will soon largely consist of the NHS, pensions, Priti Patel standing on the cliffs at Dover shouting at people to make them go away and a national flagship. There will be no money for anything else.
NEW THREAD
I wonder how they do the research for the programme though; they must draw quite a few blanks. Same with the ancestry programmes on ITV; although apparently they tried with Michael Parkinson and didn't think a long succession of coal-miners would make programme. Someone must have been interested in English etc, though; read somewhere that when someone 'rose from the ranks' checking found a great-aunt who was a teacher, even a Sunday school one, or a great-uncle a foreman.
He is right, except on the fundamental point of "errors" - there is nothing else we could have done. But this can quite plausibly be seen as a sorting out the consequences of covid tax with a "fix social care" badge stuck on it rather than a fix social care tax.
Look, I'm sure IRL you're a lovely bloke, and I don't want to get into an online slagging match with some random on the internet. Life's too short and it's a Friday and I know when it comes to stubbornness you put many mules to shame, so I don't want to get into a jaw-clenchingly irritating, ultimately futile back-and-forth with you.
But I will say that what you've written above is laughable.