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BoJo would find it more challenging facing Angela Rayner – politicalbetting.com

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  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited September 2021

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    Interesting outbreak of the thoughts of Chaiman Xi amongst the PB elders. Couple that with his war on "cissy boy-bands" and attacks on profiteering property speculation, and season with a little xenophobia and militarism and you have the next Tory manifesto.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Wes Streeting - who is currently off due to cancer treatment
  • Farooq said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    politics of envy
    Footballers are presumably being singled out for punishment because some them caused Boris a bit of embarrassment over the summer.
    I have always been against the huge wages being earned by footballers when today some are earning £400,000 per week

    Nothing to do with their politics, and indeed I have defended Marcus Rashford several times on here for his work over child food poverty and also how he has managed to be non political throughout

  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Did LadyG find out what Byronic was up to?
    Way more prolific than those two.
  • kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    £400,000 per week quickly makes them very wealthy
  • kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    Wealth creators innit!
    That warm stuff you feel trickling down upon you is very much emanating from them.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    [snip] A centre-left government would not have NI as its first preference.
    [snip]

    Ahem. Gordon Brown would like a word.
    Yes, the last Labour governments raised a number of taxes, NI included in that. I stand by what I said about preferred methods.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    £400,000 per week quickly makes them very wealthy
    But can we take "celebrity" out of the loop, and just tax rich people for being rich irrespective of how they got the dosh?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    murali_s said:

    murali_s said:

    Omnium said:

    Aslan said:

    Andy_JS said:

    This is interesting IMO:

    "Owen Jones 🌹
    @OwenJones84
    I’ve been repeatedly briefed that some of Starmer’s current and former aides have given up on his prospects and are now pinning their hopes on Wes Streeting, who they hope can be made Labour leader via the electoral college"

    https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1441025634440990726

    Are Labour really so biased towards Londom MPs that they have to resort to someone that comes across as soft and wet as Wes Streeting? He's hardly the sort of person you'd want to follow into battle, is he?
    Another London male labour leader is the last thing they need
    Where though in the country could a really good Labour leader come from?... my mind is a blank! :)
    Andy Burnham, Dan Jarvis and Lisa Nandy

    Though Andy Burnham probably the best of the three
    I see what you're doing here Big_G. Maximising the chances of a Tory win :smiley:
    Labour will only win from the centre
    The Tories won from the right / hard-right!

    Why can't Labour win from the centre-left?

    Winning from the centre is so last century!
    The Tories are governing from the centre-left.
    Letting energy firms fail, going ahead with the benefit cut, and raising regressive taxes are not the the policies of the centre left.
    Would you really bail out those small energy companies failing just now and have you costed it
    No, I would not. I agree with the government on letting them fail.
    I'm not endorsing or complaining about the policies I mentioned, just giving recent context to help position the government ideologically.
    So raising taxes while letting private capital lose money is something that only the right believes in is it? 🤔
    I would say that the right has better instincts on letting failing businesses fail, yes.
    Tax rises, yes obviously a left idea in normal times but Boris's had has been forced. A centre-left government would not have NI as its first preference.
    You didn't say anything about benefit cuts, which I assume means you just agree it's not very left.
    Cutting benefits isn't left but benefits aren't being cut from where they were, a temporary rise is lapsing. They're still as high as they were if that temporary rise hadn't been put in.

    As for not having NI as first preference - I guess you were asleep while Gordon Brown was PM? And missed the fact that the Labour Party was calling for an NI rise recently? And the SNP had done the same?
  • Farooq said:

    [snip] A centre-left government would not have NI as its first preference.
    [snip]

    Ahem. Gordon Brown would like a word.
    Earlier this year both labour and the lib dems in talks with the conservatives both wanted NI to be used for social care
  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    [snip] A centre-left government would not have NI as its first preference.
    [snip]

    Ahem. Gordon Brown would like a word.
    Yes, the last Labour governments raised a number of taxes, NI included in that. I stand by what I said about preferred methods.
    It was Gordon Brown's preferred method of raising dosh for the NHS, and, IIRC, his first big tax hike.
  • Sandpit said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    And how much will that raise?

    It seems to be the typical Labour offering - goodies for the 99% but only the 1% pay. It's just not credible

    At least Boris has been more honest in saying that the social care/NHS money will have to paid for the wider pool of working people
    If he wants to make the rich pay, then up the 40% income tax rate to 42% or 43%.

    The problem there, is that an awful lot of 40% taxpayers, especially in London, don’t think of themselves as rich.

    From memory, it’s fewer than 20% of taxpayers in that bracket.
    But again the problem here is that Boris is already putting up NI next year. And the corporation tax rate is going up over the next few years. The tax burden is predicted to be the highest level since the 60s.

    https://www.statista.com/chart/24330/uk-tax-burden-as-share-gdp-timeline/

    How much higher can it go?
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2021
    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    Interesting outbreak of the thoughts of Chaiman Xi amongst the PB elders. Couple that with his war on "cissy boy-bands" and attacks on profiteering property speculation, and season with a little xenophobia and militarism and you have the next Tory manifesto.
    To be fair though, many of our economically successful northern neighbours tax their wealthy more heavily than we do.

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    murali_s said:

    murali_s said:

    Omnium said:

    Aslan said:

    Andy_JS said:

    This is interesting IMO:

    "Owen Jones 🌹
    @OwenJones84
    I’ve been repeatedly briefed that some of Starmer’s current and former aides have given up on his prospects and are now pinning their hopes on Wes Streeting, who they hope can be made Labour leader via the electoral college"

    https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1441025634440990726

    Are Labour really so biased towards Londom MPs that they have to resort to someone that comes across as soft and wet as Wes Streeting? He's hardly the sort of person you'd want to follow into battle, is he?
    Another London male labour leader is the last thing they need
    Where though in the country could a really good Labour leader come from?... my mind is a blank! :)
    Andy Burnham, Dan Jarvis and Lisa Nandy

    Though Andy Burnham probably the best of the three
    I see what you're doing here Big_G. Maximising the chances of a Tory win :smiley:
    Labour will only win from the centre
    The Tories won from the right / hard-right!

    Why can't Labour win from the centre-left?

    Winning from the centre is so last century!
    The Tories are governing from the centre-left.
    Letting energy firms fail, going ahead with the benefit cut, and raising regressive taxes are not the the policies of the centre left.
    Would you really bail out those small energy companies failing just now and have you costed it
    No, I would not. I agree with the government on letting them fail.
    I'm not endorsing or complaining about the policies I mentioned, just giving recent context to help position the government ideologically.
    So raising taxes while letting private capital lose money is something that only the right believes in is it? 🤔
    I would say that the right has better instincts on letting failing businesses fail, yes.
    Tax rises, yes obviously a left idea in normal times but Boris's had has been forced. A centre-left government would not have NI as its first preference.
    You didn't say anything about benefit cuts, which I assume means you just agree it's not very left.
    Cutting benefits isn't left but benefits aren't being cut from where they were, a temporary rise is lapsing. They're still as high as they were if that temporary rise hadn't been put in.

    As for not having NI as first preference - I guess you were asleep while Gordon Brown was PM? And missed the fact that the Labour Party was calling for an NI rise recently? And the SNP had done the same?
    Inflation is much higher than when the uplift was announced, for a start. And the previous levels since 2014-2015 caused an explosion in foodbank use, homelessness and myriad other problems, as has been well-documented both on PB and in areas. One things I did credit Johnson with was understanding the stain on this on his party's reputation, and the shifts of public opinion on it, bit perhaps as often that's just giving Johnson too much credit.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    £400,000 per week quickly makes them very wealthy
    But can we take "celebrity" out of the loop, and just tax rich people for being rich irrespective of how they got the dosh?
    Yes - agreed

    I was only providing examples of those who should be targeted but it is not an exclusive list
  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    [snip] A centre-left government would not have NI as its first preference.
    [snip]

    Ahem. Gordon Brown would like a word.
    Yes, the last Labour governments raised a number of taxes, NI included in that. I stand by what I said about preferred methods.
    It was Gordon Brown's preferred method of raising dosh for the NHS, and, IIRC, his first big tax hike.
    First, repeatedly used and last too IIRC. I believe upon being elected the Tories cancelled another NI rise that he'd announced
  • Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Interestingly, I have a spare phone that I use to text myself to suggest that there's massive female interest in me. I've got to keep my wife on her toes.
    A self confessed AstroTurfer? 🤔
  • Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    [snip] A centre-left government would not have NI as its first preference.
    [snip]

    Ahem. Gordon Brown would like a word.
    Yes, the last Labour governments raised a number of taxes, NI included in that. I stand by what I said about preferred methods.
    It was Gordon Brown's preferred method of raising dosh for the NHS, and, IIRC, his first big tax hike.
    First, repeatedly used and last too IIRC. I believe upon being elected the Tories cancelled another NI rise that he'd announced
    Yes, it was the “Tax On Jobs” on which Cameron fought the 2010 election.

    It’s still a tax on jobs now, when a Conservative Chancellor plans to raise it.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Interestingly, I have a spare phone that I use to text myself to suggest that there's massive female interest in me. I've got to keep my wife on her toes.
    Face it, you've been steeling yourself all year for the "me or the dog" ultimatum. You just don't know which way it's gonna go.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Nothing is going to happen to these cnuts, is it?

    Hugo Lowell
    @hugolowell
    Wow — Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon says on his War Room podcast he met with Trump and Giuliani the night before Jan. 6 to discuss how to “kill the Biden presidency”, a potential admission of sedition.
    6:25 pm · 23 Sep 2021

    We have the John Eastman memo, that we now have corroboration as actually be used to try and convince Pence to throw the election and there has been basically nothing.

    It should be the biggest news since firing on Fort Sumter and nothing.
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Did LadyG find out what Byronic was up to?
    Way more prolific than those two.
    I also discovered that text messages deleted from your iPhone remain on your Apple Watch.

    You have to delete the message on your watch as well.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,608
    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Interestingly, I have a spare phone that I use to text myself to suggest that there's massive female interest in me. I've got to keep my wife on her toes.
    Face it, you've been steeling yourself all year for the "me or the dog" ultimatum. You just don't know which way it's gonna go.
    https://www.bartleby.com/364/31.html

  • If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?
    Except that yes, the richest few thousand can and do practice aggressive tax avoidance.

    You need to target the richest few million.
  • ISLE OF MAN GE 2021 - House of Keys

    oops, got the time conversion wrong, polls have closed and counting has begun . . .
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?
    Except that yes, the richest few thousand can and do practice aggressive tax avoidance.

    You need to target the richest few million.
    Aggressive tax avoidance is an ugly and pejorative term.

    I prefer the term 'tax minimisation strategies.'
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?
    Except that yes, the richest few thousand can and do practice aggressive tax avoidance.

    You need to target the richest few million.
    Aggressive tax avoidance is an ugly and pejorative term.

    I prefer the term 'tax minimisation strategies.'
    friendly tax burden mitigation
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    edited September 2021
    deleted (misunderstood)
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,720

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Did LadyG find out what Byronic was up to?
    Way more prolific than those two.
    I also discovered that text messages deleted from your iPhone remain on your Apple Watch.

    You have to delete the message on your watch as well.
    Or alternatively, let your spouse borrow your phone. There shouldn't be anything to hide*.

    * apart from a crush on the deputy leader of the Labour Party, perhaps 😆
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    edited September 2021
    eek said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Wes Streeting - who is currently off due to cancer treatment
    Isn't he cured and resumed?
    But way too early to be aiming for the top
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,720
    eek said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Wes Streeting - who is currently off due to cancer treatment
    No he is back Cancer free.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Nah anyone who was involved in student "politics" shouldn't be anywhere near real politics


  • Aggressive tax avoidance is an ugly and pejorative term.

    I prefer the term 'tax minimisation strategies.'

    I think it's more 'responding to the incentives which successive Chancellors have seen fit to build into the system'.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    I just don't see what the pretext is - being a bit underwhelming?
  • On topic, I like Angela Rayner because she's a redhead fellow learner of BSL.

    That said, if she became leader I think some in the media and Tory social conservatism might go heavy on the fact that she became a grandmother at 37.

    That might see her get a sympathy and make her opponents look a bit hypocritical given the number of times Boris Johnson has sired issue.
  • I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Labour are losing the plot

    Get behind Starmer if they want any chance of doing well in 24
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    On topic, I like Angela Rayner because she's a redhead fellow learner of BSL.

    That said, if she became leader I think some in the media and Tory social conservatism might go heavy on the fact that she became a grandmother at 37.

    That might see her get a sympathy and make her opponents look a bit hypocritical given the number of times Boris Johnson has sired issue.

    Based on past comments about her on here I think its more likely they'd snobbily go after her lack of educational qualifications, albeit the two are connected.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    I just don't see what the pretext is - being a bit underwhelming?
    A coup against Keir would get Labour in the news for a bit
  • Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Did LadyG find out what Byronic was up to?
    Way more prolific than those two.
    I also discovered that text messages deleted from your iPhone remain on your Apple Watch.

    You have to delete the message on your watch as well.
    Or alternatively, let your spouse borrow your phone. There shouldn't be anything to hide*.

    * apart from a crush on the deputy leader of the Labour Party, perhaps 😆
    Only this week I let my girlfriend use my laptop.

    I haven't been that scared since my last plane journey with extreme turbulence.
  • ISLE OF MAN GE 2021 - House of Keys

    oops, got the time conversion wrong, polls have closed and counting has begun . . .

    https://www.manxradio.com/radioplayer/
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited September 2021
    kle4 said:

    On topic, I like Angela Rayner because she's a redhead fellow learner of BSL.

    That said, if she became leader I think some in the media and Tory social conservatism might go heavy on the fact that she became a grandmother at 37.

    That might see her get a sympathy and make her opponents look a bit hypocritical given the number of times Boris Johnson has sired issue.

    Based on past comments about her on here I think its more likely they'd snobbily go after her lack of educational qualifications, albeit the two are connected.
    I'm old enough to remember when @HYUFD claimed she was wasn't intelligent enough to become PM
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Nah anyone who was involved in student "politics" shouldn't be anywhere near real politics
    That is his big weakness, having never worked outside of the political circuit. He'd have done better to have spent some time working in the real world.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?
    Except that yes, the richest few thousand can and do practice aggressive tax avoidance.

    You need to target the richest few million.
    Aggressive tax avoidance is an ugly and pejorative term.

    I prefer the term 'tax minimisation strategies.'
    'Tax planning'?
  • ISLE OF MAN GE 2021 - House of Keys

    oops, got the time conversion wrong, polls have closed and counting has begun . . .

    https://www.manxradio.com/radioplayer/
    Now I'm confused (as per usual) as BBC says polls are closed, while Manx Radio says they are open for another 16 min.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,720
    Jess Phillips MP
    @jessphillips
    ·
    Sep 18
    One of the nicest people in politics. The gorgeous, brilliant and very funny Wes Streeting.

    DYOR massive price

  • If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited September 2021

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    Interesting outbreak of the thoughts of Chaiman Xi amongst the PB elders. Couple that with his war on "cissy boy-bands" and attacks on profiteering property speculation, and season with a little xenophobia and militarism and you have the next Tory manifesto.
    To be fair though, many of our economically successful northern neighbours tax their wealthy more heavily than we do.
    Are you sure about that?

    If you look at wealth (which is the thing we are talking about taxing) distribution, places like Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are far more unequal than we are. It is mainly aiui to do with patterns of inheritance.

    Wealth Gini Nos:

    Netherlands - 0.902
    Sweden - 0,867
    USA - 0.852
    Denmark - 0.838
    Germany - 0.816
    UK - 0.746
    France - 0.696

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality


  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Keir's problem isn't just that he's boring it's that he doesn't exude confidence in his leadership. He sits at the top of the Labour Party but somewhat floating over it, only semi-attached, as he pursues his own critique of it all.

    Yes, he's sacked a couple of Corbynites and is trying to change internal party rules, but he doesn't give off the air of someone who's building a strong team and movement within the Labour Party behind him.

    Voters sense that and think, well, if you can't lead your party then why should you lead the country?

    Yeah I think that's a fair assessment
  • On topic, I like Angela Rayner because she's a redhead fellow learner of BSL.

    That said, if she became leader I think some in the media and Tory social conservatism might go heavy on the fact that she became a grandmother at 37.

    That might see her get a sympathy and make her opponents look a bit hypocritical given the number of times Boris Johnson has sired issue.

    Boris has the bumbling toff shield exemption from moral judgment or accountability. This should never be discounted.

  • If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    For me, yep.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    Interesting outbreak of the thoughts of Chaiman Xi amongst the PB elders. Couple that with his war on "cissy boy-bands" and attacks on profiteering property speculation, and season with a little xenophobia and militarism and you have the next Tory manifesto.
    To be fair though, many of our economically successful northern neighbours tax their wealthy more heavily than we do.
    Are you sure about that?

    If you look at wealth (which is the thing we are talking about taxing) distribution, places like Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway are far more unequal than we are.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality

    France doing pretty good, what's their secret?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,608
    kle4 said:

    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    Interesting outbreak of the thoughts of Chaiman Xi amongst the PB elders. Couple that with his war on "cissy boy-bands" and attacks on profiteering property speculation, and season with a little xenophobia and militarism and you have the next Tory manifesto.
    To be fair though, many of our economically successful northern neighbours tax their wealthy more heavily than we do.
    Are you sure about that?

    If you look at wealth (which is the thing we are talking about taxing) distribution, places like Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway are far more unequal than we are.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality

    France doing pretty good, what's their secret?
    All their rich people have their money in German banks.....
  • Wes Streeting (who I like) has poor timing.

    The correct moment to move would be *after* Keir’s conference speech has conspicuously failed to move the polls. Spring next year.

    I fear Wes is precipitous, and inexperienced besides. And Rayner is just a gobshite, really.
    Prescott in a dress.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,720
    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    I just don't see what the pretext is - being a bit underwhelming?
    Breaking all 10 of his leadership challenge pledges?

    Being a useless nonentity?

    SKS was only Labour Firsts interim leader they think a reversion to a 33% PLP electoral college say gives the right the opportunity to actually put forward a true believer?

    I go for the latter
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2021
    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    Interesting outbreak of the thoughts of Chaiman Xi amongst the PB elders. Couple that with his war on "cissy boy-bands" and attacks on profiteering property speculation, and season with a little xenophobia and militarism and you have the next Tory manifesto.
    To be fair though, many of our economically successful northern neighbours tax their wealthy more heavily than we do.
    Are you sure about that?

    If you look at wealth (which is the thing we are talking about taxing) distribution, places like Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway are far more unequal than we are.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality


    But they largely make up for that by a vastly better-funded public and common realm - which is supported by taxes.
  • On Starmer's magnum opus - which I haven't read - I'm reminded of something many fellow scientists have said about reading papers. Most of the time they will read the abstract, look at the figures and not bother with reading the text.

    I guess the political equivalent would be to have one of the Guardian columnists write a column about what it says about Starmerism.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
      


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    For me, yep.
    Georgist.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    I just don't see what the pretext is - being a bit underwhelming?
    Breaking all 10 of his leadership challenge pledges?
    I know the choice is for the party, but I cannot see that narrative explanation exciting the public for any potential replacement.
  • kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    This is the wealth that needs to be tapped.
  • I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Labour are losing the plot

    Get behind Starmer if they want any chance of doing well in 24
    Labour would have a better chance with Jack Bauer.
  • rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Interestingly, I have a spare phone that I use to text myself to suggest that there's massive female interest in me. I've got to keep my wife on her toes.
    I just had to explain to my wife why I (genuinely) laughed out loud whilst looking at my phone!
  • The (very) rich have gamed the system.

    They also (to channel Leon for a second) are very happy to promote critical race theory etc as it does nothing to hurt their interests.

    Hence Brexit
    Hence Trump

    And this weird zero interest rate gaga land we live in; where productivity growth has stalled, wages have been stagnant, and the average joe can’t afford a pot to piss in.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746

    murali_s said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Ms (Mr?) S, that was because the Labour Opposition was far left.

    The idea Johnson is hard right is laughable. He has no position other than self-interest.

    For which he has sometimes co-opted the far right.
    The charge doesn't stick (like Philip_T's broken phone), but there's also truth in it.
    There is absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.

    Only 🤡s who think Brexit is far right could think something so foolish.
    Nothing to do with Brexit. I'm thinking more of the sort of people he has around around him. Patel, Dorries... their presence in government is largely about appeasing the far right. Certainly not for their administrative qualities or trustworthiness.
    Ah yes the far right are notorious for loving women of ethnic minority origin aren't they?

    I'm not keen on Patel but she's not far right, that's ridiculous.
    Patel is the type who would sink migrant boats on a whim. She's part of the hang him, flog them and send them back home brigade. It's got nothing to do with her skin colour - she's just a lunatic. Most people of her ethnic origin that I know have absolute contempt for her.
    Oh really? She's been Home Secretary for twenty seven months and in that time the migrant boat numbers have increased to record levels never seen before - and quite rightly not a single one of them has been sank. Nobody has been hanged, nobody has been flogged and it doesn't seem like any more people are getting sent back as far as I can see either.

    So what are you justifying your opinion on other than pure hatred and bile?
    She has actually become a rather confused character over the past year or so. All the former certainties have faded away. She seems rather lost and directionless, as the complexity of the world overwhelms her. So begins her long journey to political obscurity....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited September 2021

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Nah anyone who was involved in student "politics" shouldn't be anywhere near real politics
    Watching him squirm as the NUS President, as he cheered on Blair’s introduction of tuition fees, somewhat against the wishes of the young people who elected him, suggested he might end up in Parliament at some point.
  • Wes Streeting (who I like) has poor timing.

    The correct moment to move would be *after* Keir’s conference speech has conspicuously failed to move the polls. Spring next year.

    I fear Wes is precipitous, and inexperienced besides. And Rayner is just a gobshite, really.
    Prescott in a dress.

    I don't think he passes the close your eyes and imagine him walking into No 10 test.

    Yet.

    Maybe in a few years.

    He would be well advised if there are moves afoot to have a word with Will Hague.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2021

    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    No. Wake up.

    For years we were assured that the very wealthy were there on merit, that wealth was a return on “hard work” and “talent”, and that wealth would trickle down.

    If it was true-ish once, it’s a bizarre lie now.

    Globalisation, financialisation, and regressive tax regimes have sustained and nourished an elite who get richer and richer and richer.

    Meanwhile, those on universal credit are about to face a double whammy of income cuts and energy price hikes.

    It’s indefensible.
    Yes, indeed. Piketty regards himself, ultimately, as a defender of capitalism, for instance, and his work on the increasing concentration and feudalisation of quite a sizeable proportion of wealth is basically indisputable.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited September 2021
    ..

  • If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    True, but I'd like to see far more effort to look at intelligently-designed taxes.

    Working people are maxed out. I think the tax burden is ridiculous.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    MattW said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    Interesting outbreak of the thoughts of Chaiman Xi amongst the PB elders. Couple that with his war on "cissy boy-bands" and attacks on profiteering property speculation, and season with a little xenophobia and militarism and you have the next Tory manifesto.
    To be fair though, many of our economically successful northern neighbours tax their wealthy more heavily than we do.
    Are you sure about that?

    If you look at wealth (which is the thing we are talking about taxing) distribution, places like Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and Norway are far more unequal than we are.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality


    But they largely make up for that by a vastly better-funded public and common realm - which is supported by taxes.
    Not by wealth taxes on asset wealth, though.

    That is the point.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555

    The bizarre thing is that we *are* at a fork in the road. Or let’s say, a change in the tides.

    2021 is as pivotal a year as 1989, or 1945.

    What country do we want to build?

    Not Boris’s.
    Nor Keir’s by the look of it.

    Margaret Thatcher's.
  • Just had confirmation that my iPhone 13 Pro Max 1TB is going to be delivered tomorrow.

    Oh happy days.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,720

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Labour are losing the plot

    Get behind Starmer if they want any chance of doing well in 24
    Anyone but Starmer gives them a better chance.
  • Wes Streeting (who I like) has poor timing.

    The correct moment to move would be *after* Keir’s conference speech has conspicuously failed to move the polls. Spring next year.

    I fear Wes is precipitous, and inexperienced besides. And Rayner is just a gobshite, really.
    Prescott in a dress.

    slim pickings due to liquidity but Wes has been beaten down to 10 on BF.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Wes Streeting (who I like) has poor timing.

    The correct moment to move would be *after* Keir’s conference speech has conspicuously failed to move the polls. Spring next year.

    I fear Wes is precipitous, and inexperienced besides. And Rayner is just a gobshite, really.
    Prescott in a dress.

    I don't think he passes the close your eyes and imagine him walking into No 10 test.

    Yet.

    Maybe in a few years.

    He would be well advised if there are moves afoot to have a word with Will Hague.
    Yes, his other weakness is that, though very able, his self regard is higher still
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,459
    edited September 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Interestingly, I have a spare phone that I use to text myself to suggest that there's massive female interest in me. I've got to keep my wife on her toes.
    Your wife has a spare phone too, for the equivalent purpose - except she doesn't text herself. You just don't know about it.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Just had confirmation that my iPhone 13 Pro Max 1TB is going to be delivered tomorrow.

    Oh happy days.

    I'll give you £100 for your iPhone 12 Pro Max. Final offer.

  • If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    True, but I'd like to see far more effort to look at intelligently-designed taxes.

    Working people are maxed out. I think the tax burden is ridiculous.
    I am not entirely sure but I suspect that with the forthcoming tax rises, Britain moves to being an “above average” tax country.

    But it all lands on the working person.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,124

    kle4 said:

    On topic, I like Angela Rayner because she's a redhead fellow learner of BSL.

    That said, if she became leader I think some in the media and Tory social conservatism might go heavy on the fact that she became a grandmother at 37.

    That might see her get a sympathy and make her opponents look a bit hypocritical given the number of times Boris Johnson has sired issue.

    Based on past comments about her on here I think its more likely they'd snobbily go after her lack of educational qualifications, albeit the two are connected.
    I'm old enough to remember when @HYUFD claimed she was wasn't intelligent enough to become PM
    He probably didn't want to get into the question of a generation length and deflected instead.
  • I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Labour are losing the plot

    Get behind Starmer if they want any chance of doing well in 24
    Anyone but Starmer gives them a better chance.
    Hmmm.

    Who else looks like PM in waiting? Other than Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who are ruled out for various reasons.
  • Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    No. Wake up.

    For years we were assured that the very wealthy were there on merit, that wealth was a return on “hard work” and “talent”, and that wealth would trickle down.

    If it was true-ish once, it’s a bizarre lie now.

    Globalisation, financialisation, and regressive tax regimes have sustained and nourished an elite who get richer and richer and richer.

    Meanwhile, those on universal credit are about to face a double whammy of income cuts and energy price hikes.

    It’s indefensible.
    Absolutely. Piketty regards himself, ultimately, as a defender of capitalism, for instance, and his work on the increasing concentration and feudalisation of quite a sizeable proportion of wealth is basically indisputable.
    The problem is when it gets political it gets taken to the old debates of left vs right, and too many defend the ultra elite without really thinking it through from a pragmatic viewpoint, thinking they are defending capitalism from the left.

    They are not defending capitalism, by refusing to fix the exploitation of capitalism by a tiny minority, they are leaving it open for a more effective Corbyn type to take control at some point as the divides continue to deepen and traditional governments run out of workers to tax.
  • Something has just happened in the women's ODI that I have only ever seen in club/village cricket.

    England, batting second, win the match thanks to a wide whilst their batter is stumped.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Interestingly, I have a spare phone that I use to text myself to suggest that there's massive female interest in me. I've got to keep my wife on her toes.
    Your wife has a spare phone too, for the equivalent purpose - except she doesn't text herself. You just don't know about it.
    I want to know why this phone isn't sending steamy texts to Ms OGH to keep Mike on his toes.
  • Just had confirmation that my iPhone 13 Pro Max 1TB is going to be delivered tomorrow.

    Oh happy days.

    I'll give you £100 for your iPhone 12 Pro Max. Final offer.
    Sadly Music Magpie have won the auction.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
  • Isle of Man Election Night

    https://www.iomelections.com/2021/live/

    PS - any comments on Manx accent?

    PPS - and might IoM play a major role in UK application to TTP, given that UK's Pacific link is Pitcairn Island, where many locals are of Manx heritage?
  • I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    Wes Streeting is about to challenge SKS

    I expect Rayner will join in once Streeting announces
    Source?
    Various sources say WS has been deleting tweets for a couple of days

    Then Aaron Bastani
    @AaronBastani
    ·
    5h
    New: Sources tell me Labour’s Wes Streeting has raised over a £100k in recent weeks & has allegedly hired Adam McNicholas company to build/run a leadership campaign.
    Labour are losing the plot

    Get behind Starmer if they want any chance of doing well in 24
    Labour would have a better chance with Jack Bauer.
    I got to the point where I found Kiefer unwatchable as his permanent whispering as a method of acting just grated on me too much.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Re Apple.

    I'm typing this on my (still perfectly functioning) 10 year old Macbook Air.

    In the previous 10 years I'd had to jettision three Windows PCs because they becmae totally unworkable due to uninvited junk and unrunnable OS upgrades.

    That, plus the simple interconnectivity of my Macbook, iMac, iPads, and iPhone, are the reasons I'm an Apple fan.

    Sinister tinge to the interconnectivity point: you will read any amount of accounts on mumsnet.com of wives being screwed over by husbands (mainly that way round) who were reading all the wife's iPhone messages on a connected ipad. I know of one really serious case in real life.
    I do recall one prolific male poster on this site, to whom that very issue (but the other way around, with her reading his messages), contributed to his divorce.
    Did LadyG find out what Byronic was up to?
    Way more prolific than those two.
    I also discovered that text messages deleted from your iPhone remain on your Apple Watch.

    You have to delete the message on your watch as well.
    Or alternatively, let your spouse borrow your phone. There shouldn't be anything to hide*.

    * apart from a crush on the deputy leader of the Labour Party, perhaps 😆
    Only this week I let my girlfriend use my laptop.

    I haven't been that scared since my last plane journey with extreme turbulence.
    Show her how much you love her, by creating her own account on your laptop…
  • Wes Streeting (who I like) has poor timing.

    The correct moment to move would be *after* Keir’s conference speech has conspicuously failed to move the polls. Spring next year.

    I fear Wes is precipitous, and inexperienced besides. And Rayner is just a gobshite, really.
    Prescott in a dress.

    I don't think he passes the close your eyes and imagine him walking into No 10 test.

    Yet.

    Maybe in a few years.

    He would be well advised if there are moves afoot to have a word with Will Hague.
    Yup. The surprising thing is how few politicians pass the "Their Premiership is announced on News at Ten tonight- do you sleep well?" test.

    I'll give BoJo a pass, much as it goes against my instincts.

    Rishi? Not tonight. He has a UCAS Personal Statement to go and write.

    Gove? Maybe. Patel? You're joking. Truss? Give her five years, perhaps.

    On the opposition side, there are plenty of passionate campaigners, but very few I can imagine being chilled about having them as PM. Hence Starmer, boring as he is.

    That may be prejudice, but it matters.
  • Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I had a look at Starmer's essay.

    It feels quite like the last Labour Government

    More police
    More hospital beds
    More teachers
    New IT systems
    Spend spend spend

    The question is how the hell do you pay for it all? We have had 2 big crises in the GFC and COVID. We also have the future challenges of social care and climate change.

    Our debt to GDP ratio is now around 100%. Taxes are going up to record levels.

    Not a lot on how Lab overcome their weaknesses on the economy and public spending

    Starmer needs to come out with a big plan on taxing wealth, making it clear that the 99% won't be affected. It's not that hard really.
    It has its problems but a 95% tax on all celebrities including footballers would be a good start
    Bless! How do define 'celebrity'?
    Those multi millionaire, billionaire film stars, pop stars and footballers taking home £400,000 a week to begin with, but of course they will no doubt receive a pass as they are usually of the left
    I dont think that was Mr Pointer's, er, point. You've already just excluded plenty of less wealthy celebrities, its just not possible to target 'celebrities' precisely. John Curtice has celebrity in politics but most wouldn't think of him.
    I am aware that it is not practical but their wealth needs heavily taxing
    I don’t really care how much footballers earn.

    I DO care that US billionaires have seen their wealth rise by ONE THIRD during the pandemic, which amounts to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

    I assume the very wealthy in the U.K. have seen similar gains.

    Why are we all letting the 0.01% fuck us over?
    That ‘wealth’, is in stock price valuations, rather than cash in the bank. Yours and my pension funds have also gone up considerably during the pandemic, thanks to investments in those very same companies.
    No one ever seems to point out that those same billionaires had 'lost' shedloads of money when share prices collapsed at the start of the pandemic. It's all pretty meaningless stuff.
    No. Wake up.

    For years we were assured that the very wealthy were there on merit, that wealth was a return on “hard work” and “talent”, and that wealth would trickle down.

    If it was true-ish once, it’s a bizarre lie now.

    Globalisation, financialisation, and regressive tax regimes have sustained and nourished an elite who get richer and richer and richer.

    Meanwhile, those on universal credit are about to face a double whammy of income cuts and energy price hikes.

    It’s indefensible.
    Yes, indeed. Piketty regards himself, ultimately, as a defender of capitalism, for instance, and his work on the increasing concentration and feudalisation of quite a sizeable proportion of wealth is basically indisputable.
    I'm about as far from a socialist as it's possible to get, and even I am infuriated by how the super-rich benefit from QE, asset inflation and yet get away with paying bugger all.

    It's about fairness for me. That's it. If the tax base changes then so must the tax.

    We've introduced plenty of new taxes in the past, including income tax, NI and VAT, let's work out how to tap it mechanistically first and we can then politically debate the rate.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    True, but I'd like to see far more effort to look at intelligently-designed taxes.

    Working people are maxed out. I think the tax burden is ridiculous.
    I am not entirely sure but I suspect that with the forthcoming tax rises, Britain moves to being an “above average” tax country.

    But it all lands on the working person.
    Our tax system is broken because all governments and parties are afraid of taxing asset classes and wealth of older people. It will be very much like Brexit, that will be ok until the day it isn't and working people say sod it and vote for some Corbyn candidate because it can't get any worse than what they have with 50%+ marginal rates vs old people on 20% for the same level of income etc...
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited September 2021
    MaxPB said:


    If its all meaningless the richest few thousand in the country surely wont mind paying a 0.5% of that meaningless stuff each year?

    I can't speak for them, but it's a massive economic fallacy, one worthy of Richard Murphy, to assume that notional wealth can simply be taxed (i.e. converted into real cash and grabbed by the government) without clobbering its value or triggering behaviour to take it out of reach. This of course is especially true of illiquid assets.

    That's not to say that there's no scope for intelligently-designed taxes to raise more from the wealthy, but the idea that there are trillions lying around which the tax authorities in multiple countries have perversely failed to help themselves to is very naive.
    Ten, fifteen years ago the landscape was very different. The richest 1% had fewer assets. It was more likely to be earnt than windfall gains from QE. And importantly on the other side of the equation most people who worked full time had a clear path where they could improve their lot. Financial controls and transparency are tighter now than they were then.

    It is you being naive if you think it is sustainable for the richest 1% to see their wealth grow at double the rate of the rest of us, be exempt from targeted asset taxes and democracy to last. At least one of them will have to give.
    Absolutely.

    And I quite like democracy.
    So if it’s a choice between that and a wealth tax, I’m gonna plump for the latter.

    And please don’t tell me wealth is hard to tax.
    It transmutes into physical assets, the most notable being housing.

    We don’t really tax wealth in this country, we just expect the plebs to pick up the bill.
    So it all comes back to a land value tax?
    Why not be bold and put up a 5% value surcharge on non-primary residential property? That would raise a lot of money and fix the housing market. Also put up CGT on property investment to 45% with a non-transferable reduction to 28% for new builds. We could also make landlords liable for triple council tax for any property which has been empty for longer than 6 months and commercial landlords liable for quadruple rates for commercial premises that have been empty for longer than 6 months.

    These are all revenue raising and would tilt both residential and commercial property back from asset owners to the people who actually use them.
    How would anyone enforce a tripling of council tax for empty properties? Do we know exactly which properties are empty and which are not?

    All good ideas though.
This discussion has been closed.