The Tory problem – this is how Rishi is perceived – politicalbetting.com

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

turbotubbs said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists that developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

They give these prizes out to any Tom, Dick and Harry these days....

There are some on the weird anti-vax community would have them subjected to a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity...

By chance I had a Pfizer covid booster on saturday and sure as eggs is eggs, had an awful 24 hour period with high fever and feeling like crap. I have had this every time I've had an mRNA Covid shot, but not with the AZ ones. This is not going to stop me having them, but I do, think there is something in the delivery system that my body reacts violently to, much more so than any other vaccine I've ever had. The only other reaction I've had at all like it was a bird flu shot about 10 years ago.

OldKingCole said:

turbotubbs said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists that developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

They give these prizes out to any Tom, Dick and Harry these days....

There are some on the weird anti-vax community would have them subjected to a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity...

By chance I had a Pfizer covid booster on saturday and sure as eggs is eggs, had an awful 24 hour period with high fever and feeling like crap. I have had this every time I've had an mRNA Covid shot, but not with the AZ ones. This is not going to stop me having them, but I do, think there is something in the delivery system that my body reacts violently to, much more so than any other vaccine I've ever had. The only other reaction I've had at all like it was a bird flu shot about 10 years ago.

That’s unfortunate. Mrs C and I had Pfizer booster’s on Wednesday and as usual, being a more sensitive subject than me, her arm hurt for a couple of days, whereas I forgot I’d had it later that day.

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

turbotubbs said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists that developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

They give these prizes out to any Tom, Dick and Harry these days....

There are some on the weird anti-vax community would have them subjected to a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity...

By chance I had a Pfizer covid booster on saturday and sure as eggs is eggs, had an awful 24 hour period with high fever and feeling like crap. I have had this every time I've had an mRNA Covid shot, but not with the AZ ones. This is not going to stop me having them, but I do, think there is something in the delivery system that my body reacts violently to, much more so than any other vaccine I've ever had. The only other reaction I've had at all like it was a bird flu shot about 10 years ago.

I had quite the opposite experience.
24hr high fever with AZN, and not much at all from the mRNA jab.

Similarly with the immune response to Covid infection itself - some have a violent, sometimes dangerous immune response: others barely register it.

The risks, of course, are orders of magnitude higher with the bug itself.

Do we know why the booster jab is not yet available to buy like the flu one - can't be a capacity issue can it ?

I got it from my first AZ too, and not the others.

And today I have the real thing, for the first time in close to 2 years. Feeling decidedly crap.

turbotubbs said:

OldKingCole said:

turbotubbs said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists that developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

They give these prizes out to any Tom, Dick and Harry these days....

There are some on the weird anti-vax community would have them subjected to a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity...

By chance I had a Pfizer covid booster on saturday and sure as eggs is eggs, had an awful 24 hour period with high fever and feeling like crap. I have had this every time I've had an mRNA Covid shot, but not with the AZ ones. This is not going to stop me having them, but I do, think there is something in the delivery system that my body reacts violently to, much more so than any other vaccine I've ever had. The only other reaction I've had at all like it was a bird flu shot about 10 years ago.

That’s unfortunate. Mrs C and I had Pfizer booster’s on Wednesday and as usual, being a more sensitive subject than me, her arm hurt for a couple of days, whereas I forgot I’d had it later that day.

Its known that the immune system declines with age, and putting it delicately you and Mrs C have enjoyed more summers than most, so you probably benefit from that!

As I said, it doesn't put me off having it, as I really don't want covid (not knowingly had it yet (can't be many who can say that?). It does annoy me though and makes it more of a chore. Mostly back to 100% today.

Andy_JS said:

Casino_Royale said:

Leon said:

Oh god what a load of fucking shite

Eventually this race-grifting will come to a total juddering halt

They are playing to their base.

They want to hear that Braverman is evil personified and feel good about themselves and their shibboleths, and retweet accordingly to signal that to their peer group, so this article delivers perfectly.

According to wikipedia, she's a Buddhist, her mother's Hindu, her father's Christian, and her husband's Jewish.

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

turbotubbs said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists that developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

They give these prizes out to any Tom, Dick and Harry these days....

There are some on the weird anti-vax community would have them subjected to a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity...

By chance I had a Pfizer covid booster on saturday and sure as eggs is eggs, had an awful 24 hour period with high fever and feeling like crap. I have had this every time I've had an mRNA Covid shot, but not with the AZ ones. This is not going to stop me having them, but I do, think there is something in the delivery system that my body reacts violently to, much more so than any other vaccine I've ever had. The only other reaction I've had at all like it was a bird flu shot about 10 years ago.

I had quite the opposite experience.
24hr high fever with AZN, and not much at all from the mRNA jab.

Similarly with the immune response to Covid infection itself - some have a violent, sometimes dangerous immune response: others barely register it.

The risks, of course, are orders of magnitude higher with the bug itself.

Do we know why the booster jab is not yet available to buy like the flu one - can't be a capacity issue can it ?

I got it from my first AZ too, and not the others.

And today I have the real thing, for the first time in close to 2 years. Feeling decidedly crap.

Stuartinromford said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

...

Cookie said:

nico679 said:

I can’t see the HS2 uncertainty being promoted by no 10 to only then say it’s going to be saved .

I expect they will cancel the Manchester part and instead do something with the west to east links . The government has overseen a total fiasco with HS2 , why anyone would believe them with more promises is clearly going to be an issue !

They can’t however use any savings to dish out tax cuts as HS2 comes under capital spending .

The thing is, 'doing something with the west to east links' requires HS2 to be there.

From a Northern perspective, broadly, if it was one or the other, we'd rather have Northern Powerhouse Rail (i.e. fast Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds trains) than HS2. But it's not really one or the other. The central bit of the planned NPR route in the Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands is infrastructure delivered by HS2 i.e. the section from Manchester to Manchester Airport, plus both stations.
It's also worth pointing out that NPR also includes Newcastle-Leeds-Manchester-Birmingham trains. These, too, need the whole of HS2 Phase 2b (i.e. the Manchester-Crewe section).

It's not beyond the bounds of credibility that someone tasked with 'what decisions can we make about HS2 at the party conference in Manchester to show us in the best light' came up with 'prioritise NPR over HS2' but was so ignorant of the detail that they didn't realise the extent of the shared infrastructure.

I only heard the other day that if the 'high speed' hadn't been a factor, a stopping service to Birmingham could have used the trackbed of the Great Central Railway, relieving pressure on the WCML at a fraction of the cost of HS2. This idea is discussed here (worth reading the comments for informed views on both sides): https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2020/04/20-monday-essay-could-the-great.html

Can we not be inventive and revive former infrastructure which was clearly built originally with some purpose, if we stop being obsessed with quite unnecessary bullet trains and grand 'too big to fail' projects?

It is frequently alleged that the Great Central Railway was built to ‘continental loading gauge’ so that international trains coming through the Channel Tunnel would have been able to use Watkin’s new main line, and this claim is also used to bolster a further myth that a reopened Great Central would be a workable (and cheaper) substitute for HS2. Although the GCR was well-engineered, neither of these claims bear close examination.

Nigelb said:

Not.

Unbelievable! The AfD's top candidate for next year's European elections has just been revealed as head of a long-running Chinese influence operation
https://twitter.com/PeterRNeumann/status/1708731621191430504

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

Leon said:

I’m getting sick and tired of this anti-wealth agenda, picking on people who have luxurious or successful lives like it is some kind of crime

And yes, it is time to crack down on spongers who never even LOOK for a proper job

Good morning

Nigelb said:

turbotubbs said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists that developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

They give these prizes out to any Tom, Dick and Harry these days....

There are some on the weird anti-vax community would have them subjected to a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity...

By chance I had a Pfizer covid booster on saturday and sure as eggs is eggs, had an awful 24 hour period with high fever and feeling like crap. I have had this every time I've had an mRNA Covid shot, but not with the AZ ones. This is not going to stop me having them, but I do, think there is something in the delivery system that my body reacts violently to, much more so than any other vaccine I've ever had. The only other reaction I've had at all like it was a bird flu shot about 10 years ago.

I had quite the opposite experience.
24hr high fever with AZN, and not much at all from the mRNA jab.

Similarly with the immune response to Covid infection itself - some have a violent, sometimes dangerous immune response: others barely register it.

The risks, of course, are orders of magnitude higher with the bug itself.

Do we know why the booster jab is not yet available to buy like the flu one - can't be a capacity issue can it ?

Nigelb said:

Not.

Unbelievable! The AfD's top candidate for next year's European elections has just been revealed as head of a long-running Chinese influence operation
https://twitter.com/PeterRNeumann/status/1708731621191430504

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

Nigelb said:

Not.

Unbelievable! The AfD's top candidate for next year's European elections has just been revealed as head of a long-running Chinese influence operation
https://twitter.com/PeterRNeumann/status/1708731621191430504

Amazing that they have found a far right politician who is NOT in the pay of Russia.

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

Anabobazina said:

Ye Gods, are we back to "super spreaders" and "my vax story" again?

Somebody make it stop.

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

You really are thick , NIC is supposed to be paid till you are state pension age, hence why it stops DUMBO. Fact that a few pensioners work part time after that makes no difference and would raise peanuts you stupid half witted idiot.

Andy_JS said:

Nigelb said:

Not.

Unbelievable! The AfD's top candidate for next year's European elections has just been revealed as head of a long-running Chinese influence operation
https://twitter.com/PeterRNeumann/status/1708731621191430504

Is this news going to dent the AfD's 22% average poll rating?

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

LostPassword said:

Om.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Just like National Insurance is a tax masquerading as Insurance.

All these taxes should be merged into one and everyone should pay the same rate of tax.

This of course horrifies those currently exempt from paying NIC and the Graduate Tax while expecting others to pay them both.

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

Nigelb said:

Not.

Unbelievable! The AfD's top candidate for next year's European elections has just been revealed as head of a long-running Chinese influence operation
https://twitter.com/PeterRNeumann/status/1708731621191430504

Amazing that they have found a far right politician who is NOT in the pay of Russia.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

You really are thick , NIC is supposed to be paid till you are state pension age, hence why it stops DUMBO. Fact that a few pensioners work part time after that makes no difference and would raise peanuts you stupid half witted idiot.

I know what its supposed to be paid until, but things can be changed. Why should it stop once at pension age? What good reason is there for it not to apply to pensions, or investment incomes like from letting out homes, or dividends and so on and so forth?

I never said it should be levied on pensioners who work part time, did I?

I said it should be levied on all income that income tax applies to. Which would include pensioners working, yes, so it would also include pensions, money from letting out properties etc

Since everything the NIC tax pays is PAYG and there is no pot of money that has been accrued to fund obligations, it should be paid equitably as you go by everyone and not only those working for their pay.

Don't be so stupid, why not have VAT on everything, you cannot get blood out of a stone. Why the Feck would you pay NI on your state pension that was provided due to teh vast amount of NI you had paid for it.

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

LostPassword said:

Om.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Just like National Insurance is a tax masquerading as Insurance.

All these taxes should be merged into one and everyone should pay the same rate of tax.

This of course horrifies those currently exempt from paying NIC and the Graduate Tax while expecting others to pay them both.

How would you propose to deal with graduates who took out a loan for university & have now paid it back. (That'll be a very common situation amongst younger gen X & older millenials)

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

malcolmg said:

Nigelb said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

TimS said:

Nigelb said:

turbotubbs said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists that developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

They give these prizes out to any Tom, Dick and Harry these days....

There are some on the weird anti-vax community would have them subjected to a Nuremburg style trial for crimes against humanity...

By chance I had a Pfizer covid booster on saturday and sure as eggs is eggs, had an awful 24 hour period with high fever and feeling like crap. I have had this every time I've had an mRNA Covid shot, but not with the AZ ones. This is not going to stop me having them, but I do, think there is something in the delivery system that my body reacts violently to, much more so than any other vaccine I've ever had. The only other reaction I've had at all like it was a bird flu shot about 10 years ago.

I had quite the opposite experience.
24hr high fever with AZN, and not much at all from the mRNA jab.

Similarly with the immune response to Covid infection itself - some have a violent, sometimes dangerous immune response: others barely register it.

The risks, of course, are orders of magnitude higher with the bug itself.

Do we know why the booster jab is not yet available to buy like the flu one - can't be a capacity issue can it ?

I got it from my first AZ too, and not the others.

And today I have the real thing, for the first time in close to 2 years. Feeling decidedly crap.

Hope it passes soon Tim. I have had it twice, once without really even knowing it apart from the test and the other it felt like I had someone standing on all my joints for 3 days. So you have my sympathy and best wishes.

I am waiting for the call for my jabs (Flu and Covid). I am hearing a lot more friends say they had a bit of a kicking from the jabs this year compared to previously but I am still looking forward to getting it - if not to any after effects.

Had the flu jab over the weekend.
No noticeable reaction at all.

Thought it was only old codgers getting it this time, I thought you were just a whippersnapper Nigel.

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

You really are an illiterate dumbo who can't understand what other people wrote aren't you? Maybe if you were better educated your reading comprehension would be better.

I never said she was earning £25k, I said that the repayment threshold is now set at £25k so graduates earning £25k or above is on an effective 9% higher income tax rate from that point on.

£25k is not in my view "big money" which is what you falsely claimed, do you think its big money?

Do you really think its air t hat someone on £25k or above should have a marginal tax rate of 41%? 20+12+9 = 41 whether you like it or not, don't be an innumerate dumbo, that's how the numbers are.

You are at it again Thicko , where did I say 25K was big money. If they want the advantage of university then they should pay for it , usual whining from the likes of you, scrounger that wants everybody else to pay for them and their brood.
Get out and get a decent job rather than trying to sponge off pensioners.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

You really are an illiterate dumbo who can't understand what other people wrote aren't you? Maybe if you were better educated your reading comprehension would be better.

I never said she was earning £25k, I said that the repayment threshold is now set at £25k so graduates earning £25k or above is on an effective 9% higher income tax rate from that point on.

£25k is not in my view "big money" which is what you falsely claimed, do you think its big money?

Do you really think its air t hat someone on £25k or above should have a marginal tax rate of 41%? 20+12+9 = 41 whether you like it or not, don't be an innumerate dumbo, that's how the numbers are.

You are at it again Thicko , where did I say 25K was big money. If they want the advantage of university then they should pay for it , usual whining from the likes of you, scrounger that wants everybody else to pay for them and their brood.
Get out and get a decent job rather than trying to sponge off pensioners.

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

You really are thick , NIC is supposed to be paid till you are state pension age, hence why it stops DUMBO. Fact that a few pensioners work part time after that makes no difference and would raise peanuts you stupid half witted idiot.

I know what its supposed to be paid until, but things can be changed. Why should it stop once at pension age? What good reason is there for it not to apply to pensions, or investment incomes like from letting out homes, or dividends and so on and so forth?

I never said it should be levied on pensioners who work part time, did I?

I said it should be levied on all income that income tax applies to. Which would include pensioners working, yes, so it would also include pensions, money from letting out properties etc

Since everything the NIC tax pays is PAYG and there is no pot of money that has been accrued to fund obligations, it should be paid equitably as you go by everyone and not only those working for their pay.

Don't be so stupid, why not have VAT on everything, you cannot get blood out of a stone. Why the Feck would you pay NI on your state pension that was provided due to teh vast amount of NI you had paid for it.

Because the state needs funding.

Why the Feck should you not pay NI on your state pension? Or private pensions too?

You've not "paid for it", its pay as you go, and the as you go hasn't finished.

So you cannot read either as well as being as thick as mince. Go read the government site , 35 years contributions idiot, I paid for 50 years , why not whine that I deserve 15 years back as well as back pension as I was supposed to get state pension a year earlier based on what I was originally promised.
What a Bellend.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

£25k is the threshold above which the 9% graduate tax is levied. I'm not going to share her pay details on here, but she's working for a government-funded organisation in a technical role, where she'll hopefully make good use of her Maths degree, but isn't likely to make a huge income.

Possibly she'll end up taking a much better paid job in the private sector once she has a few years experience, but if too many skilled graduates do the same then government organisations will have to spend absurd sums of money on contractors and consultants to stop everything falling apart.

It will give you plenty to moan about, no doubt.

All I would say is far too many going to university who end up in jobs that do not need degrees and most government organisations jobs do not require degrees to function , it is just an affection. Most of tehm should at best be apprenticeships or learn on the job.

malcolmg said:

OldKingCole said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

You really are an illiterate dumbo who can't understand what other people wrote aren't you? Maybe if you were better educated your reading comprehension would be better.

I never said she was earning £25k, I said that the repayment threshold is now set at £25k so graduates earning £25k or above is on an effective 9% higher income tax rate from that point on.

£25k is not in my view "big money" which is what you falsely claimed, do you think its big money?

Do you really think its air t hat someone on £25k or above should have a marginal tax rate of 41%? 20+12+9 = 41 whether you like it or not, don't be an innumerate dumbo, that's how the numbers are.

You are at it again Thicko , where did I say 25K was big money. If they want the advantage of university then they should pay for it , usual whining from the likes of you, scrounger that wants everybody else to pay for them and their brood.
Get out and get a decent job rather than trying to sponge off pensioners.

A teacher or, even ‘worse’ a doctor spends several unremunerated years at university, to be fair.

Some jobs do require a degree OKC, many do not though. Your examples would I say require a degree.

Andy_JS said:

rottenborough said:

John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
40m
Newsom picks Laphonza Butler as Feinstein replacement

There really ought to be a special election to fill a Senate vacancy.

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

You really are thick , NIC is supposed to be paid till you are state pension age, hence why it stops DUMBO. Fact that a few pensioners work part time after that makes no difference and would raise peanuts you stupid half witted idiot.

I know what its supposed to be paid until, but things can be changed. Why should it stop once at pension age? What good reason is there for it not to apply to pensions, or investment incomes like from letting out homes, or dividends and so on and so forth?

I never said it should be levied on pensioners who work part time, did I?

I said it should be levied on all income that income tax applies to. Which would include pensioners working, yes, so it would also include pensions, money from letting out properties etc

Since everything the NIC tax pays is PAYG and there is no pot of money that has been accrued to fund obligations, it should be paid equitably as you go by everyone and not only those working for their pay.

Don't be so stupid, why not have VAT on everything, you cannot get blood out of a stone. Why the Feck would you pay NI on your state pension that was provided due to teh vast amount of NI you had paid for it.

Because the state needs funding.

Why the Feck should you not pay NI on your state pension? Or private pensions too?

You've not "paid for it", its pay as you go, and the as you go hasn't finished.

So you cannot read either as well as being as thick as mince. Go read the government site , 35 years contributions idiot, I paid for 50 years , why not whine that I deserve 15 years back as well as back pension as I was supposed to get state pension a year earlier based on what I was originally promised.
What a Bellend.

Contributions don't stop after 35 years you idiot. I've paid for most of that already, I'll still continue to pay for the rest of my working life - and should pay for the rest of my life as its PAYG not contributions based. Idiot.

So what if you've paid for 50 years? You never paid into a pot, its pay as you go, payments should continue for your entire life as you're not stopping claiming healthcare or any other benefits from the state anymore now are you?

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

You really are an illiterate dumbo who can't understand what other people wrote aren't you? Maybe if you were better educated your reading comprehension would be better.

I never said she was earning £25k, I said that the repayment threshold is now set at £25k so graduates earning £25k or above is on an effective 9% higher income tax rate from that point on.

£25k is not in my view "big money" which is what you falsely claimed, do you think its big money?

Do you really think its air t hat someone on £25k or above should have a marginal tax rate of 41%? 20+12+9 = 41 whether you like it or not, don't be an innumerate dumbo, that's how the numbers are.

You are at it again Thicko , where did I say 25K was big money. If they want the advantage of university then they should pay for it , usual whining from the likes of you, scrounger that wants everybody else to pay for them and their brood.
Get out and get a decent job rather than trying to sponge off pensioners.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

£25k is the threshold where you pay 9% extra income tax from then on. Not big money as you claimed, £25k.

So is £25k big money, or were you wrong? Dumbo.

Expecting pensioners to pay the same rate of tax as everyone else, including NIC on all pensions paid the same as all salaries, is not "scrounging". Everyone should be treated the same, that's consistency.

Don't like it? Go get a job.

You absolute numpty , I have a job , an extremely well paid one as well as my state pension and pay thousands monthly in income tax and paid NI for 50 years. Also chose not to go to university despite being the DUX at school , never held me back DUMBO. Unlike you I did not get free childcare and all sorts of benefits, my wife looked after my daughter.

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

You really are thick , NIC is supposed to be paid till you are state pension age, hence why it stops DUMBO. Fact that a few pensioners work part time after that makes no difference and would raise peanuts you stupid half witted idiot.

I know what its supposed to be paid until, but things can be changed. Why should it stop once at pension age? What good reason is there for it not to apply to pensions, or investment incomes like from letting out homes, or dividends and so on and so forth?

I never said it should be levied on pensioners who work part time, did I?

I said it should be levied on all income that income tax applies to. Which would include pensioners working, yes, so it would also include pensions, money from letting out properties etc

Since everything the NIC tax pays is PAYG and there is no pot of money that has been accrued to fund obligations, it should be paid equitably as you go by everyone and not only those working for their pay.

Don't be so stupid, why not have VAT on everything, you cannot get blood out of a stone. Why the Feck would you pay NI on your state pension that was provided due to teh vast amount of NI you had paid for it.

Because the state needs funding.

Why the Feck should you not pay NI on your state pension? Or private pensions too?

You've not "paid for it", its pay as you go, and the as you go hasn't finished.

So you cannot read either as well as being as thick as mince. Go read the government site , 35 years contributions idiot, I paid for 50 years , why not whine that I deserve 15 years back as well as back pension as I was supposed to get state pension a year earlier based on what I was originally promised.
What a Bellend.

Contributions don't stop after 35 years you idiot. I've paid for most of that already, I'll still continue to pay for the rest of my working life - and should pay for the rest of my life as its PAYG not contributions based. Idiot.

So what if you've paid for 50 years? You never paid into a pot, its pay as you go, payments should continue for your entire life as you're not stopping claiming healthcare or any other benefits from the state anymore now are you?

Yet again halfwit , I ahve private healthcare, private Dentistry. Do some work you slacker.

Nigelb said:

Shapps seems to be the @Sunil_Prasannan of the cabinet.

Will the Tories stay in office long enough for him to complete the full set ?

Grant Shapps appearing at @RUSI_org bright and early this morning to discuss Ukraine, GCAP, defence spending.

“I think I’m right in saying this is your fifth cabinet job?” asks
@LOS_Fisher .

“Fifth cabinet job this year,” Shapps replies.
https://twitter.com/georgegrylls/status/1708760174993793358

viewcode said:

Andy_JS said:

Pat Arrowsmith has died. She famously disrupted Jim Callaghan's constituency declaration at the 1979 election.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/01/pat-arrowsmith-obituary

At 5 hours 14 mins.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074yz8/decision-79-election-night

Yes she did
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXf8Gjy-OA&t=18900s

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

OldKingCole said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

You really are an illiterate dumbo who can't understand what other people wrote aren't you? Maybe if you were better educated your reading comprehension would be better.

I never said she was earning £25k, I said that the repayment threshold is now set at £25k so graduates earning £25k or above is on an effective 9% higher income tax rate from that point on.

£25k is not in my view "big money" which is what you falsely claimed, do you think its big money?

Do you really think its air t hat someone on £25k or above should have a marginal tax rate of 41%? 20+12+9 = 41 whether you like it or not, don't be an innumerate dumbo, that's how the numbers are.

You are at it again Thicko , where did I say 25K was big money. If they want the advantage of university then they should pay for it , usual whining from the likes of you, scrounger that wants everybody else to pay for them and their brood.
Get out and get a decent job rather than trying to sponge off pensioners.

A teacher or, even ‘worse’ a doctor spends several unremunerated years at university, to be fair.

Some jobs do require a degree OKC, many do not though. Your examples would I say require a degree.

And a newly qualified teacher on a £30k salary is facing a real marginal tax rate of 41% on everything she or he earns over £25k. 20+12+9

Do you really think its reasonable to tax an early career teacher 41% when others are taxed less who earn the same or more?

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

OldKingCole said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

malcolmg said:

LostPassword said:

Barnesian said:

algarkirk said:

Stuartinromford said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

Excuse me but I've been banging the drum on fiscal drag and opposed it since it was announced. I'm entirely consistent.

And of course I was a loyal Tory until Sunak started putting up taxes like National Insurance and fiscal drag.

I have my principles. I believe people should be able to keep more of their own income they work for. The Tories used to believe that too.

I haven't left the Tories, Sunak's Tories have left me.

I'm sure Rishi wants lower taxes. But he wants them in the same way that St Augustine wanted chastity.

(Unless he can find ways of cutting government spending on a recurring basis, I'd rather it was funded by taxes than borrowing. The mix of taxes he's using is a disgrace, though.)

Two questions.

How can you talk tax cuts when borrowing £100billion+ a year.

Why are we borrowing £100 billion this year instead of balancing the books now the pandemic is over?

There is nothing wrong with borrowing if you are using the money to invest eg in infrastructure or education where the return is substantially greater than the interest on the borrowing.

We have plenty of borrowing headroom. The national debt is about one year's GDP. Individuals often have mortgage debt of up to three time annual salary and find it sustainable. Plenty of headroom.

But to borrow to cut taxes is severely damaging and driven by ideology.

So I agree with your first sentence but not your second.

Pretty much the entire deficit is due to interest payments on government debt. So Britain would be in a much better place if it wasn't having to service so much debt. It doesn't make much sense to me to add even more debt, and even more future debt interest payments, particularly when the future demographic challenges means that it becomes harder to service debts in the future, with an ageing population, and a shrinking global population.

And besides all that, after the experience of the Truss Calamity, I'm amazed that anyone could think that Britain has any headroom to borrow more. The market response showed that there wasn't much appetite to lend Britain more money, nor confidence in Britain being able to service larger debts.

Worked out over the weekend that my newly-graduated daughter is paying a higher tax rate on her income (20% basic rate + 9% student loans graduate tax + 12 % national insurance = 41%) than my Dad is on his pension (40% higher rate of income tax). Absolutely insane.

Poor comparison , the 9% is a government payday/bank type loan so not a tax ( and if she does not earn big money she does not pay the loan back).

My Dad is a graduate, just like her, and he didn't have to pay it. It's a tax masquerading as a loan. Claiming otherwise is pure sophistry.

Letting so many people be paid by state to go to university is the issue ( only a fraction of the current volumes were at university when her Dad dit it ). Those who need to for certain jobs should go and pay for it , the others should jsut take a job and save wasting time and money.
If as Idiot Bart says she is earning 25K then she could just as easily taken a job at a till in Tesco's and been earning for years and have no LOAN to pay back.

You really are an illiterate dumbo who can't understand what other people wrote aren't you? Maybe if you were better educated your reading comprehension would be better.

I never said she was earning £25k, I said that the repayment threshold is now set at £25k so graduates earning £25k or above is on an effective 9% higher income tax rate from that point on.

£25k is not in my view "big money" which is what you falsely claimed, do you think its big money?

Do you really think its air t hat someone on £25k or above should have a marginal tax rate of 41%? 20+12+9 = 41 whether you like it or not, don't be an innumerate dumbo, that's how the numbers are.

You are at it again Thicko , where did I say 25K was big money. If they want the advantage of university then they should pay for it , usual whining from the likes of you, scrounger that wants everybody else to pay for them and their brood.
Get out and get a decent job rather than trying to sponge off pensioners.

A teacher or, even ‘worse’ a doctor spends several unremunerated years at university, to be fair.

Some jobs do require a degree OKC, many do not though. Your examples would I say require a degree.

And a newly qualified teacher on a £30k salary is facing a real marginal tax rate of 41% on everything she or he earns over £25k. 20+12+9

Do you really think its reasonable to tax an early career teacher 41% when others are taxed less who earn the same or more?

If they want to take a loan to get the benefits then that is personal choice , if they don't liek it go out and get a job rather than go to university. They get 17 weeks holidays a year , do you shout to the rooftops that everyone should get 17 weeks , or a final salary pension , etc. NO just regurgitate the same old bash a pensioner crap ad nauseum. What part of your thick skull cannot grasp that most pensioners are NOT rich

Cookie said:

OldKingCole said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

You really are thick , NIC is supposed to be paid till you are state pension age, hence why it stops DUMBO. Fact that a few pensioners work part time after that makes no difference and would raise peanuts you stupid half witted idiot.

I know what its supposed to be paid until, but things can be changed. Why should it stop once at pension age? What good reason is there for it not to apply to pensions, or investment incomes like from letting out homes, or dividends and so on and so forth?

I never said it should be levied on pensioners who work part time, did I?

I said it should be levied on all income that income tax applies to. Which would include pensioners working, yes, so it would also include pensions, money from letting out properties etc

Since everything the NIC tax pays is PAYG and there is no pot of money that has been accrued to fund obligations, it should be paid equitably as you go by everyone and not only those working for their pay.

Don't be so stupid, why not have VAT on everything, you cannot get blood out of a stone. Why the Feck would you pay NI on your state pension that was provided due to teh vast amount of NI you had paid for it.

Because the state needs funding.

Why the Feck should you not pay NI on your state pension? Or private pensions too?

You've not "paid for it", its pay as you go, and the as you go hasn't finished.

So you cannot read either as well as being as thick as mince. Go read the government site , 35 years contributions idiot, I paid for 50 years , why not whine that I deserve 15 years back as well as back pension as I was supposed to get state pension a year earlier based on what I was originally promised.
What a Bellend.

Pushing up the age at which one becomes an OAP does irritate people. Especially if it’s pushed up while one is beginning to anticipate it!

OldKingCole said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

malcolmg said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

.

StillWaters said:

bondegezou said:

StillWaters said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Farooq said:

Eabhal said:

rottenborough said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

The PM is rich? So what. He is leader of the Conservative Party not a Corbynite Marxist sect.

What voters want to see is their own economic circumstances improve which he and Hunt are doing by cutting inflation and growing the economy and hopefully in due course cutting tax as well.

As for getting rid of Rishi, barely more than a year ago OGH was telling Tories to get rid of Boris in favour of Rishi!

Cutting inflation is not a sufficient condition for people to "see their own economic circumstances improve". What matters to most people is the difference between their income inflation and price inflation. Inflation is still high.

We're not going destitute as fast as we were, darling. I think i'll vote conservative now.

And don't forget the cumulative effect - it will be quite some time before real wages are back where they were before Sunak got in.

Yes. We're just off the back of 20 straight months of CPI inflation being above wage inflation. We've had one month with wages going up faster than CPI. So even if every month is the mirror of the months before, we'll still be worse off than we were in October 2021 by the time the election comes around.

Especially thanks to fiscal drag.

Real take-home wages are still falling currently, even with nominal wages growing faster than inflation.

You’re in danger of post hoc data mining

Wages aren’t growing!

Oops.

Real wages aren’t growing! 😁

Fuck!

Shit! Umm! Fiscal drag, thats’s it. Fiscal drag!

Real take-home wages aren’t growing! 😁

You’re in danger of wrapping yourself in a comfortable blanket of argument while, I suspect, Bart’s position better reflects the experience of the electorate.

He has two drums that he bangs with monotonous regularity. It gives me a headache.

Fiscal drag sucks. It’s a sneaky tax. But it’s not what people focus on - they see their tax home pay go up, but are struggling to make ends meet because prices are going up faster.

Unfortunately the size of state that the electorate wants needs to be paid for. If there was a government that was willing to be more disciplined then there would be saving that could be made, but that isn’t this government or (I suspect) the next one.

But the level of tax rises that are needed to balance the budget (or at least reduce the deficit below the rate of GDP growth) are too large to be affordable by the rich (however defined). They have already made significant contributions (eg additional rate threshold cut by £25k - that’s £1,250 extra income tax from each individual) as have companies with the planned increase in corporation tax.

there will be more tax rises to come for the wealthy, but the middle income voter needs to contribute as well.

Middle income earners can already be on 80% real marginal tax rates - how much higher than that should those go?

How about taxing everyone the same so everyone contributes equally, rather than opting some out of NICs etc?

Why should some be exempt from contributing whatsoever?

You really are thick , NIC is supposed to be paid till you are state pension age, hence why it stops DUMBO. Fact that a few pensioners work part time after that makes no difference and would raise peanuts you stupid half witted idiot.

I know what its supposed to be paid until, but things can be changed. Why should it stop once at pension age? What good reason is there for it not to apply to pensions, or investment incomes like from letting out homes, or dividends and so on and so forth?

I never said it should be levied on pensioners who work part time, did I?

I said it should be levied on all income that income tax applies to. Which would include pensioners working, yes, so it would also include pensions, money from letting out properties etc

Since everything the NIC tax pays is PAYG and there is no pot of money that has been accrued to fund obligations, it should be paid equitably as you go by everyone and not only those working for their pay.

Don't be so stupid, why not have VAT on everything, you cannot get blood out of a stone. Why the Feck would you pay NI on your state pension that was provided due to teh vast amount of NI you had paid for it.

Because the state needs funding.

Why the Feck should you not pay NI on your state pension? Or private pensions too?

You've not "paid for it", its pay as you go, and the as you go hasn't finished.

So you cannot read either as well as being as thick as mince. Go read the government site , 35 years contributions idiot, I paid for 50 years , why not whine that I deserve 15 years back as well as back pension as I was supposed to get state pension a year earlier based on what I was originally promised.
What a Bellend.

Pushing up the age at which one becomes an OAP does irritate people. Especially if it’s pushed up while one is beginning to anticipate it!

It may irritate people, but it’s still the right thing to do.

The state pension used to kick in at the point 6 years after the average death. It was insurance in case you happened to get to 65 and be too old to work to support yourself, rather than a nice reward to look forward to at the end of your life.
We should celebrate people living longer, but we should also make use of those people.
Not least because it’s a lot easier to save for your retirement if you have more years in which to do it!