In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
National service for the 50-65 early retired.....its only a weekend after all.....
Complete early retirement is terrible for the individual and the country. I have long thought the government needs to nudge towards having people gradually moving towards retirement where possible, 5 days a week to 4 days to 3 days, rather than Bob packing in on a Friday and never working again for 30+ years. It is better for the individual and also better for the country as organisations don't lose that knowledge and experience overnight.
Great post. Absolutely right. My father really suffered from early retirement. People need things to keep them occupied in life.
My Dad went from being an Acting Superintendent (Police) to nothing overnight. My mum was still at work and they had recently moved into a new build house (so no maintenance required etc). I think he was lost for a few years. Spent long days walking on Salisbury Plain, mainly, I think, for something to do.
He did adjust in the end - gained an allotment (he had had a decent veg patch before the move) and dabbled in restoring Dinky toys and building model remote controlled aircraft. But I think it was a shock.
Personally interesting as I'm contemplating retirement (at 74) after a stroke last month that's left no physical signs except a need to sleep more - harder to judge mental effects. I've been signed off work to end-June and then have various options. Switching from 4 days a week to 0 seems drastic, but working for the sake of working seems unnecessary. I think I'll aim to come back for a few months at a reduced level, and then do one-off contracts if they seem interesting.
The Thai visa offer is canny as a Scotsman dressed as an irn bru can doing the cancan
Because digital nomads won’t impinge on the welfare system. Everyone expat in thailand goes private - Thailand’s private medicine and dentistry are excellent and relatively cheap
So Thailand just gets lots of people spending money and boosting the economy
I see myself as slightly left-of-centre on social issues (or perhaps centrist...), and right-of-centre economically.
That should be perfect Conservative-voting territory. Sadly, there is absolutely nothing that could convince me to vote Conservative this year.
Fortunately there are seven candidates standing in my constituency this time; much better than three in 2019 (due to the Lib Dem/Green stitch-up...)
Incidentally, one of our candidates is one of the sixteen "Party of Women" candidates standing at this GE. So that should really be six options...
I see myself as left of centre on social issues and right of centre economically, although probably further right economically with some fairly extremely liberal social views - legalise drugs, trans self ID, etc. Quite what that makes me, I have no idea. Classically liberal on steroids, I guess.
Like you, there is nothing in the world that could convince me to vote Conservative this year, even though I'm pretty certain Labour will hit me with more taxes, we might at least get a competent government out of it. The Conservatives are no longer the party of business, nor are they the party of homeowners, nor are they the party of staying out of other people's business.
But the thing that has infuriated me most about the campaign so far is that neither the Tories nor Labour are talking anything sensible on immigration. I'm a metropolitan Londoner and I believe that a reasonable amount of immigration is good for the country, from both an economic and societal perspective. Unfortunately what we have is an unreasonable amount of immigration, that's unsustainable given the levels of infrastructure development in the country and also leaves me deeply worried about integration - concerns that have risen drastically since the rise of antisemitism since last year.
I wouldn't vote for the odious, dog whistling racists in Reform ('doesn't understand our culture', 'London taken over by Islamists' etc) but I think a serious conversation about immigration needs to be had, before our society's infrastructure and cultural cohesion begins to break down. So where do I go? Who do I vote for? I want to vote for a party that has answers on immigration, without hating immigrants.
It's genuinely infuriating, because it *is* a problem to which none of the main parties has an answer, and the only people willing to discuss it are dog-whistling racists. I'd like to see it tackled before it drives even more people into the arms of the far right.
Aren’t Labour saying what you want on immigration? They’re not opposed to all immigration, they don’t hate immigrants, but they are saying they will decrease it from current levels.
How?
The Conservatives have also been saying the same thing as an 'aspiration to reduce immigration' since the Cameron days (what was it? 'tens of thousands', we were promised in 2010) and have done bugger all. 14 years later we are seeing 750k a year net.
As far as I'm aware all Labour have said so far is they want a 'points based system' but that doesn't give any concrete detail. Labour have said nothing on immigration that stops me voting for them. But how they will actually tackle the issues in practice seems like a lot of handwaving to me at the moment. I want concrete numbers, and I want a lot more focus on building infrastructure to cope with existing numbers, rather than wishy washy promises to reduce future numbers.
In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
Is that 9.43m working age, or does that include pensioners?
"Economic inactivity" is not always a bad thing; my wife is having her last day in the office today (she works from home a mere 175 miles away from the office apart from 1 day a month), as we have a baby due in July. I think it's very unlikely she'll go back to work at least until we're done having kids.
From the statistically point of view, she's going to become pretty economically inactive (from a well paid job), however back in the real world we've just decided we would rather enjoy our kids growing up ourselves rather than subcontract it out as childcare, so she can go back to work, which won't pay much more than the cost of said childcare. It's bad news for the taxman as they lose out on tax on her income, and tax on the nursery business's profits, plus the income tax the nursery staff would have paid, and as an extra whammy in our situation she can have £12.5k virtually tax free out of my business in return for doing my accounts paperwork for me, and I'll take home a bit less taxed at my marginal tax rate, but it's a no-brainer of a decision for us as a family.
Children being brought up by their parents almost certainly have better outcomes than children dumped into nursery care at the earliest possible age, so it's probably better for the country too.
We made a similar choice and have no regrets. Our first child had nursery one day a week for a few months from 13 months to 18 months or so while we shared parenting the rest of the time (both going part time) but that didn't really work for us and my wife did not return to work after our second was born.
But I don't see it as being as black and white as you. Different things work for different families.
I see Sunak now trying the 'Don't hand them a Landslide" defence.
The most successful democratic party in the world reduced to this.
LOL.
Another 24 days of this execrable performance to endure. It’s no wonder that even the politically engaged are tuning out the campaigns entirely: it’s just day after day of pointless shit flinging we all have to get through until the election day when we will finally put the Cons out of their misery.
Nobody has to endure any of it to be fair
Just do what I have done, tune into sports channels and enjoy the garden/ outdoors
It is good for your wellbeing and I will go to bed early on the 4th July and wake up for breakfast on the 5th July and whatever the results , so be it
In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
This, it seems to me, gets right to the heart of the real problem. It relates to housing, growth, migration, school absence, benefits culture, government expenditure, tax, NHS, the social contract and the social fabric. It has been massively disguised by the use of meaningless unemployment figures which in the world of common sense are many millions higher than the headline figure. We have been deceived and as a nation are deceiving ourselves.
The good news is that a new government could just possibly work on this in ways which are both popular with the majority (who don't form part of the 9 million) and don't necessarily cost hundreds of billions.
Thing is, if you have paid off your mortgage, you have some savings (because your mortgage was always relatively cheap, being based on pre-boom house prices), and you can release some capital by downsizing, or you have a chunky inheritance...
Why would you keep working?
Because work (if you are fortunate) is rewarding both mentally and financially. There is a whole industry set up to persuade people that they should aspire to do nothing. It is utterly cancerous on society. We take people, who from a knowledge and experience perspective, are often at their peak, and tell them to go and tend the roses 24/7 or go on a once a year Viking River cruise, while getting themselves measured up for a Stenner stair lift. It is an absolute waste of talent.
For all those anxious for the starting gun...this has just arrived from Sadiq Khan
"Roger -
Something pretty exciting is happening today: the first votes are being cast by post.
While polling day is 22 days away, an incredible 8,077,398 of postal voters - that’s almost 20% of people registered to vote - will start to vote early from today.
So we cannot wait. From now, we are treating every day like it’s polling day to make sure voters hear our message and vote for Labour.
In some constituencies, victory and defeat could be decided by postal votes. Especially in seats where we’re ambitiously striving to overturn huge Tory majorities.
Will you make a £15 donation to Labour’s get out the postal vote efforts right now? We’ll invest it immediately in our work to earn every vote we can across Britain."
I see Sunak now trying the 'Don't hand them a Landslide" defence.
The most successful democratic party in the world reduced to this.
LOL.
Another 24 days of this execrable performance to endure. It’s no wonder that even the politically engaged are tuning out the campaigns entirely: it’s just day after day of pointless shit flinging we all have to get through until the election day when we will finally put the Cons out of their misery.
Says you. I'm voting to put them into eternal misery and despondency, not out of it.
For all those anxious for the starting gun...this has just arrived from Sadiq Khan
"Roger -
Something pretty exciting is happening today: the first votes are being cast by post.
While polling day is 22 days away, an incredible 8,077,398 of postal voters - that’s almost 20% of people registered to vote - will start to vote early from today.
So we cannot wait. From now, we are treating every day like it’s polling day to make sure voters hear our message and vote for Labour.
In some constituencies, victory and defeat could be decided by postal votes. Especially in seats where we’re ambitiously striving to overturn huge Tory majorities".
And your opinion on Macron and French politics would be interesting
I'm in the biggest work slump of my freelance career and the grand or two I make a month would go much further outside the UK. Combine that with a potential incoming wealth tax (I earn little, but I used to earn a lot, so have plenty of assets) and it becomes a no-brainer. I was previously looking at Portugal, but it's probably not much cheaper living than the UK.
I can't imagine I'm the only person making the same calculation.
It is extremely tempting. It appears to say No tax at all. But we need the small print. We also need to know how much time you HAVE to spend in Thailand - I’m gonna look at it tonight
If it’s as flexible as it appears then it’s highly generous. Bangkok is also a great hub for flights all over Asia and europe - lots of them cheap
Living in London during this economic slump, I lose money every month and have to draw down on my portfolio (incurring CGT, which looks set to double).
In Thailand I could easily afford to live even if I only get four or five days of freelance work a month, which is about what I get on average this year. Untaxed and in Thailand, two grand will go a very long way. Plus, no need to draw down on my investment portfolio. Win-win.
In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
National service for the 50-65 early retired.....its only a weekend after all.....
Complete early retirement is terrible for the individual and the country. I have long thought the government needs to nudge towards having people gradually moving towards retirement where possible, 5 days a week to 4 days to 3 days, rather than Bob packing in on a Friday and never working again for 30+ years. It is better for the individual and also better for the country as organisations don't lose that knowledge and experience overnight.
Great post. Absolutely right. My father really suffered from early retirement. People need things to keep them occupied in life.
My Dad went from being an Acting Superintendent (Police) to nothing overnight. My mum was still at work and they had recently moved into a new build house (so no maintenance required etc). I think he was lost for a few years. Spent long days walking on Salisbury Plain, mainly, I think, for something to do.
He did adjust in the end - gained an allotment (he had had a decent veg patch before the move) and dabbled in restoring Dinky toys and building model remote controlled aircraft. But I think it was a shock.
Personally interesting as I'm contemplating retirement (at 74) after a stroke last month that's left no physical signs except a need to sleep more - harder to judge mental effects. I've been signed off work to end-June and then have various options. Switching from 4 days a week to 0 seems drastic, but working for the sake of working seems unnecessary. I think I'll aim to come back for a few months at a reduced level, and then do one-off contracts if they seem interesting.
For all those anxious for the starting gun...this has just arrived from Sadiq Khan
"Roger -
Something pretty exciting is happening today: the first votes are being cast by post.
While polling day is 22 days away, an incredible 8,077,398 of postal voters - that’s almost 20% of people registered to vote - will start to vote early from today.
So we cannot wait. From now, we are treating every day like it’s polling day to make sure voters hear our message and vote for Labour.
In some constituencies, victory and defeat could be decided by postal votes. Especially in seats where we’re ambitiously striving to overturn huge Tory majorities".
People won't get their postal votes to the 19/20th but you do need to knock on doors before then as otherwise it will be too late...
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
Brian Eno is a fantastic musician but he has some really mad and unsavoury political views
He has, for instance, stood alongside Roger Waters in solidarity with “Chris Williamson” against Zionism - and he continually obsesses about Israel and has done so long before the latest conflict
Awaiting Sunak at Tory manifesto launch at Silverstone…
Labour have already called it the “most expensive panic attack in history”.
Not sure joking about panic attacks is the best idea in these days of mental health issuee
Labour are so smug. Reality will hit home to them and their supporters when they actually have to do stuff and realise that most of their front bench would struggle to get above middle management in a failing district council, let alone run a country.
And this is the essential weakness of our system. If one had to fix a failing company who would say,
"Hey, let's bring in a team that has never done anything like this before"?
"Let's make a public sector lawyer the CEO and a team of lightweights none of whom have ever run anything. That'll make a nice change. But it is OK, many of them were leading figures in their university Students' Unions."
In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
Is that 9.43m working age, or does that include pensioners?
"Economic inactivity" is not always a bad thing; my wife is having her last day in the office today (she works from home a mere 175 miles away from the office apart from 1 day a month), as we have a baby due in July. I think it's very unlikely she'll go back to work at least until we're done having kids.
From the statistically point of view, she's going to become pretty economically inactive (from a well paid job), however back in the real world we've just decided we would rather enjoy our kids growing up ourselves rather than subcontract it out as childcare, so she can go back to work, which won't pay much more than the cost of said childcare. It's bad news for the taxman as they lose out on tax on her income, and tax on the nursery business's profits, plus the income tax the nursery staff would have paid, and as an extra whammy in our situation she can have £12.5k virtually tax free out of my business in return for doing my accounts paperwork for me, and I'll take home a bit less taxed at my marginal tax rate, but it's a no-brainer of a decision for us as a family.
Children being brought up by their parents almost certainly have better outcomes than children dumped into nursery care at the earliest possible age, so it's probably better for the country too.
For all those anxious for the starting gun...this has just arrived from Sadiq Khan
"Roger -
Something pretty exciting is happening today: the first votes are being cast by post.
While polling day is 22 days away, an incredible 8,077,398 of postal voters - that’s almost 20% of people registered to vote - will start to vote early from today.
So we cannot wait. From now, we are treating every day like it’s polling day to make sure voters hear our message and vote for Labour.
In some constituencies, victory and defeat could be decided by postal votes. Especially in seats where we’re ambitiously striving to overturn huge Tory majorities".
And your opinion on Macron and French politics would be interesting
Well I've just arrived this morning and the queues at Nice airport were horrendous!
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
I see the new BBC Director of Sport has got off to a great start.....blocking Martina Navratilova....
This is pretty pathetic- never heard of this man, looked him up here and found myself blocked. Once again, good to know that men apparently know what women like myself and Sharron know about biology and sports etc. Just amazing to be this confident, no?
I'm in the biggest work slump of my freelance career and the grand or two I make a month would go much further outside the UK. Combine that with a potential incoming wealth tax (I earn little, but I used to earn a lot, so have plenty of assets) and it becomes a no-brainer. I was previously looking at Portugal, but it's probably not much cheaper living than the UK.
I can't imagine I'm the only person making the same calculation.
It is extremely tempting. It appears to say No tax at all. But we need the small print. We also need to know how much time you HAVE to spend in Thailand - I’m gonna look at it tonight
If it’s as flexible as it appears then it’s highly generous. Bangkok is also a great hub for flights all over Asia and europe - lots of them cheap
Living in London during this economic slump, I lose money every month and have to draw down on my portfolio (incurring CGT, which looks set to double).
In Thailand I could easily afford to live even if I only get four or five days of freelance work a month, which is about what I get on average this year. Untaxed and in Thailand, two grand will go a very long way. Plus, no need to draw down on my investment portfolio. Win-win.
A lot of expats really rate chiang mai. It’s not the unspoiled jewel it used to be but on the upside it now has many of the advantages of Bangkok - great restaurants, excellent shopping - without the insane traffic and sprawl. Also surrounded by green countryside and pretty hills
Smog from burning crops and fields - lazy farmers - can be an issue, however
TO SECURE OUR COMMUNITIES… WE WILL DELIVER: 92,000 extra nurses and 28,000 extra doctors – while driving up NHS productivity. 8,000 more full time police officers so every police ward has a new officer. 1.6 million more good homes while protecting our countryside.
So given the lead time to train a doctor where are you going to get 28,000 from... and building 300,000 homes is going to be fun when we struggle to build 150,000 a year...
TO SECURE OUR COMMUNITIES… WE WILL DELIVER: 92,000 extra nurses and 28,000 extra doctors – while driving up NHS productivity. 8,000 more full time police officers so every police ward has a new officer. 1.6 million more good homes while protecting our countryside.
So given the lead time to train a doctor where are you going to get 28,000 from... and building 300,000 homes is going to be fun when we struggle to build 150,000 a year...
It's all lies, isn't it? I mean, how much you can rely on any of them is a matter for debate, but the Tories are clearly making most of it up as they go along.
Awaiting Sunak at Tory manifesto launch at Silverstone…
Labour have already called it the “most expensive panic attack in history”.
Not sure joking about panic attacks is the best idea in these days of mental health issuee
Labour are so smug. Reality will hit home to them and their supporters when they actually have to do stuff and realise that most of their front bench would struggle to get above middle management in a failing district council, let alone run a country.
And this is the essential weakness of our system. If one had to fix a failing company who would say,
"Hey, let's bring in a team that has never done anything like this before"?
"Let's make a public sector lawyer the CEO and a team of lightweights none of whom have ever run anything. That'll make a nice change. But it is OK, many of them were leading figures in their university Students' Unions."
It's an argument for a presidential system where the executive (the cabinet) is appointment from wider society, rather than being limited to the legislature (Parliament).
It also means you don't get constant shuffling of rolls during a Parliament as people try to get closer the the 'top' of the Cabinet.
Their policy would of course all need to go through Parliament. Would be an argument for fewer statutory instruments that don't.
Mr. Gaussian, Third Rome is only believed by those who prefer propaganda to history.
Ms (Mr? Apologies, I forget) Kirk, that book sounds intriguing, thanks for mentioning it. I do feel very sorry for Heraclius. Manages to win a war from a terrible position, recovers all lost territory, then six minutes later Islam's born and an army of Arabs annihilates the Persians then takes most of the Eastern Roman Empire.
I could not recommend Howard-Johnston's 2021 book more highly for those who love ancient history, the corralling of multiple incredibly obscure sources and decent writing. It is Oxford classical scholarship at its magnificent best. Yes, this long war is totally forgotten as the rules of the game were to be changed for ever, and by about 700/800 the demarcations were closer to how they are now than they were to 600 (perhaps I am being polemical here!)
The Last Great War of Antiquity - James Howard-Johnston (2021)
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
You are conflating old age pensions with civil service pensions. They may both be called pensions but one is a state benefit and the other is a contractual entitlement. The contractual entitlement ones were paid for in advance, by doing the job they were attached to.
‘We are the Party of Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson’
What he didn’t say:
And of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson
And of Rishi Sunak.
Jeremy Hunt to be fair to him is good. He's got the right priorities and tackling NI, a tax solely on work not income, is absolutely completely the right thing to do.
What a shame Sunak has instead chosen to do a campaign centred around such offensive bullshit as National Service.
Most young people nowadays work, even if going to University, and many typically work weekends.
The idea of giving up some weekends to do something good might suit Tarquin and Jemima who go through Uni on Mummy and Daddy's income, but for those responsible young adults who have jobs and commitments at 18 to see them through it is an ill thought through, offensive and ridiculous piece of nonsense.
In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
Is that 9.43m working age, or does that include pensioners?
"Economic inactivity" is not always a bad thing; my wife is having her last day in the office today (she works from home a mere 175 miles away from the office apart from 1 day a month), as we have a baby due in July. I think it's very unlikely she'll go back to work at least until we're done having kids.
From the statistically point of view, she's going to become pretty economically inactive (from a well paid job), however back in the real world we've just decided we would rather enjoy our kids growing up ourselves rather than subcontract it out as childcare, so she can go back to work, which won't pay much more than the cost of said childcare. It's bad news for the taxman as they lose out on tax on her income, and tax on the nursery business's profits, plus the income tax the nursery staff would have paid, and as an extra whammy in our situation she can have £12.5k virtually tax free out of my business in return for doing my accounts paperwork for me, and I'll take home a bit less taxed at my marginal tax rate, but it's a no-brainer of a decision for us as a family.
Children being brought up by their parents almost certainly have better outcomes than children dumped into nursery care at the earliest possible age, so it's probably better for the country too.
Its those aged 18-64
Is it still to 64 or does it now go up to 66 to mirror the increase in State Retirement Age? It must capture quite a few people like me who worked hard, retired early on their own means, and just do a bit of voluntary work.
@Steven_Swinford The economic debate over the Tory manifesto is well underway
Paul Johnson of the IFS points out that the spending measures are concrete - tax cuts, defence etc.
But the savings from welfare cuts and reducing tax avoidance and evasion are far from certain
Sunak will face questions over economic credibility that Labour will play directly into
Keir Starmer already comparing Tory manifesto with Jeremy Corbyn's offering from 2019
You mean the one Starmer ran on not even five years ago?
Even for Starmer that's breathtakingly brazen, given that he campaigned to make Jeremy Corbyn PM, then ran on a Corbynite manifesto to become Labour leader before casually ditching all the pledges he made a few months into becoming Labour leader.
Such staggering hypocrisy and no-one ever calls him on it.
For all those anxious for the starting gun...this has just arrived from Sadiq Khan
"Roger -
Something pretty exciting is happening today: the first votes are being cast by post.
While polling day is 22 days away, an incredible 8,077,398 of postal voters - that’s almost 20% of people registered to vote - will start to vote early from today.
So we cannot wait. From now, we are treating every day like it’s polling day to make sure voters hear our message and vote for Labour.
In some constituencies, victory and defeat could be decided by postal votes. Especially in seats where we’re ambitiously striving to overturn huge Tory majorities.
Will you make a £15 donation to Labour’s get out the postal vote efforts right now? We’ll invest it immediately in our work to earn every vote we can across Britain."
Well without any change to Inheritance tax, attacking Labour is all Rishi has to offer...
The £2k lie already seems to be coming up in focus groups as a concern about Labour. Lying works. Ask Boris. It catches up with you eventually, but for the period of an election campaign, it works.
In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
Is that 9.43m working age, or does that include pensioners?
"Economic inactivity" is not always a bad thing; my wife is having her last day in the office today (she works from home a mere 175 miles away from the office apart from 1 day a month), as we have a baby due in July. I think it's very unlikely she'll go back to work at least until we're done having kids.
From the statistically point of view, she's going to become pretty economically inactive (from a well paid job), however back in the real world we've just decided we would rather enjoy our kids growing up ourselves rather than subcontract it out as childcare, so she can go back to work, which won't pay much more than the cost of said childcare. It's bad news for the taxman as they lose out on tax on her income, and tax on the nursery business's profits, plus the income tax the nursery staff would have paid, and as an extra whammy in our situation she can have £12.5k virtually tax free out of my business in return for doing my accounts paperwork for me, and I'll take home a bit less taxed at my marginal tax rate, but it's a no-brainer of a decision for us as a family.
Children being brought up by their parents almost certainly have better outcomes than children dumped into nursery care at the earliest possible age, so it's probably better for the country too.
Its those aged 18-64
Is it still to 64 or does it now go up to 66 to mirror the increase in State Retirement Age? It must capture quite a few people like me who worked hard, retired early on their own means, and just do a bit of voluntary work.
Yes, but some people have always taken early retirement. I would guess less are taking it than previously as pensions aren't as generous as they once were. The numbers of economically inactive are way way up.
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
You are conflating old age pensions with civil service pensions. They may both be called pensions but one is a state benefit and the other is a contractual entitlement. The contractual entitlement ones were paid for in advance, by doing the job they were attached to.
You are wrong.
Doing the job may have got the contractual entitlement but it was absolutely never paid for at the time.
Defined contribution schemes are paid for at the time. DB schemes were not.
If DB schemes were paid for at the time they wouldn't cost us a penny today. That's not the case.
In the three months to April, there were 9.43m people who were economically inactive in Britain, meaning they are neither in a job nor looking for one.
These included a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness, which rose 55,000 to 2.83m.
It means the worklessness crisis has reached a scale that threatens to undermine the economy’s growth potential, according to Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies.
Is that 9.43m working age, or does that include pensioners?
"Economic inactivity" is not always a bad thing; my wife is having her last day in the office today (she works from home a mere 175 miles away from the office apart from 1 day a month), as we have a baby due in July. I think it's very unlikely she'll go back to work at least until we're done having kids.
From the statistically point of view, she's going to become pretty economically inactive (from a well paid job), however back in the real world we've just decided we would rather enjoy our kids growing up ourselves rather than subcontract it out as childcare, so she can go back to work, which won't pay much more than the cost of said childcare. It's bad news for the taxman as they lose out on tax on her income, and tax on the nursery business's profits, plus the income tax the nursery staff would have paid, and as an extra whammy in our situation she can have £12.5k virtually tax free out of my business in return for doing my accounts paperwork for me, and I'll take home a bit less taxed at my marginal tax rate, but it's a no-brainer of a decision for us as a family.
Children being brought up by their parents almost certainly have better outcomes than children dumped into nursery care at the earliest possible age, so it's probably better for the country too.
Its those aged 18-64
Is it still to 64 or does it now go up to 66 to mirror the increase in State Retirement Age? It must capture quite a few people like me who worked hard, retired early on their own means, and just do a bit of voluntary work.
Yes, but some people have always taken early retirement. The numbers are way way up.
Part of the problem, imo, is the lack of provision of mental health services. What has caused the increase in mental health issues is hard to say but getting treatment for mental health is very difficult. So people just end up signed off sick.
TO SECURE OUR COMMUNITIES… WE WILL DELIVER: 92,000 extra nurses and 28,000 extra doctors – while driving up NHS productivity. 8,000 more full time police officers so every police ward has a new officer. 1.6 million more good homes while protecting our countryside.
So given the lead time to train a doctor where are you going to get 28,000 from... and building 300,000 homes is going to be fun when we struggle to build 150,000 a year...
We only struggle to build 150k a year because planning gets in the way of more than that, giving control of the market to an oligopoly of firms who can play the planning system.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 9m Daft idea. Treasury has been trying to reduce the tax incentive for people to pretend to be self-employed
More people on zero hours contracts pay higher rate tax than any other band....because it a huge tax incentive to do it if you are a one man band swapping time for money.
TO SECURE OUR COMMUNITIES… WE WILL DELIVER: 92,000 extra nurses and 28,000 extra doctors – while driving up NHS productivity. 8,000 more full time police officers so every police ward has a new officer. 1.6 million more good homes while protecting our countryside.
So given the lead time to train a doctor where are you going to get 28,000 from... and building 300,000 homes is going to be fun when we struggle to build 150,000 a year...
We only struggle to build 150k a year because planning gets in the way of more than that, giving control of the market to an oligopoly of firms who can play the planning system.
TO SECURE OUR COMMUNITIES… WE WILL DELIVER: 92,000 extra nurses and 28,000 extra doctors – while driving up NHS productivity. 8,000 more full time police officers so every police ward has a new officer. 1.6 million more good homes while protecting our countryside.
So given the lead time to train a doctor where are you going to get 28,000 from... and building 300,000 homes is going to be fun when we struggle to build 150,000 a year...
We only struggle to build 150k a year because planning gets in the way of more than that, giving control of the market to an oligopoly of firms who can play the planning system.
There's no reason we can't do more.
Nope we don't have enough skilled people to build more homes.
Case in point - a recent project for a large UK homebuilder revealed the issue, 2) I need a plaster ASAP and the earliest one I can get with recommendations is 3 weeks time.
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
They were a part of the package yes.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Yep. What a pointless twat. They think they are the last heroes fighting the coming nightfall. Totally self unaware like all violent zealots You beat Farage with your words, only ever your words.
Macron's decision to call a snap general election may be as disastrous as Sunak's. The first poll from Harris puts RN on the cusp of a majority.
Depends what his grand plan is. Assuming he has one.
He's French. So he probably has. Admittedly there are only three (take Moscow, surrender to Berlin, betray London).
Your regular reminder that the cheese eating surrendermonkeys deferred their surrender to give the tea drinking retreatrosbifs time to bravely run away. And then rebadge the whole embarrassing episode as part of the Finest Hour™ Universe.
Mr. Gaussian, Third Rome is only believed by those who prefer propaganda to history.
Ms (Mr? Apologies, I forget) Kirk, that book sounds intriguing, thanks for mentioning it. I do feel very sorry for Heraclius. Manages to win a war from a terrible position, recovers all lost territory, then six minutes later Islam's born and an army of Arabs annihilates the Persians then takes most of the Eastern Roman Empire.
I could not recommend Howard-Johnston's 2021 book more highly for those who love ancient history, the corralling of multiple incredibly obscure sources and decent writing. It is Oxford classical scholarship at its magnificent best. Yes, this long war is totally forgotten as the rules of the game were to be changed for ever, and by about 700/800 the demarcations were closer to how they are now than they were to 600 (perhaps I am being polemical here!)
The Last Great War of Antiquity - James Howard-Johnston (2021)
Like so many wars, it completely destroyed the State that launched it. The Eastern Empire was bloodied but unbowed, and remained a major power for another 600 years. The Sassanid monarchy was swept away in three decades, and no native dynasty ruled Iran until the 16th century.
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
They were a part of the package yes.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Alternatively we could tax everyone the same.
They were paid for, by (a) actual payments from salary and (b) actuarially assessed reduction in salary compared to provate sector comparators. The Treasury was very insistent on that, I remember well.
Awaiting Sunak at Tory manifesto launch at Silverstone…
Labour have already called it the “most expensive panic attack in history”.
Not sure joking about panic attacks is the best idea in these days of mental health issuee
Labour are so smug. Reality will hit home to them and their supporters when they actually have to do stuff and realise that most of their front bench would struggle to get above middle management in a failing district council, let alone run a country.
And this is the essential weakness of our system. If one had to fix a failing company who would say,
"Hey, let's bring in a team that has never done anything like this before"?
"Let's make a public sector lawyer the CEO and a team of lightweights none of whom have ever run anything. That'll make a nice change. But it is OK, many of them were leading figures in their university Students' Unions."
To be honest, I don't see much correlation between previous experience and competence in govt.
I'd say both Starmer and Sunak have more impressive CVs than David Cameron or Tony Blair on entering office.
Similarly both Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves seem much better qualified to be Chancellor than Gordon Brown or George Osborne, neither of whom even studied economics.
Brian Eno is a fantastic musician but he has some really mad and unsavoury political views
He has, for instance, stood alongside Roger Waters in solidarity with “Chris Williamson” against Zionism - and he continually obsesses about Israel and has done so long before the latest conflict
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
On the specific point if DB pensions, I don't think that's true. I have been with the same employer for twenty years. I started out in a final salary scheme, then was shunted onto career average when that became unaffordable, and finally into something that might be called defined contribution plus when that also became unaffordable.
In each case where existing scheme members were prevented from accruing additional benefits and moved onto a less generous regime, it's because the scheme was viewed to gave been adequately funded to cover its liabilities up until that point but that, going forward, it wouldn't be (too expensive for the firm, and hiking the contributions by the members to deal with the problem would've made them too expensive for us.) In short, the trustees were ensuring that the scheme remained properly funded based on existing contributions, and NOT expecting future contributions to cover existing pensioner benefits.
This is all quite different from the situation with the state pension and the bonkers triple lock, which is a one way ratchet designed to redistribute wealth from working age taxpayers to current pensioners, of course.
Every time Fraser Nelson mentions that the top 1% contribute 28% of all income tax, it just serves as a reminder that the 1% are minted and the rest of the country isn't earning much at all.
The same with this stat. Something has gone horribly wrong when pensioners are the biggest contributors of incometax.
We have a crop of pensioners who put lots into pensions and as a result quite a few have high pension incomes in retirement.
Which is better than them all starving in heaps.
We also have a crop of pensioners on extremely generous gold plated defined benefit pensions that they did not contribute in full towards.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
I'm very sorry you haven't got a DB pension Barty but you do appreciate they were part of the package which some people chose to accept, others opted for different packages at different employers.
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
They were a part of the package yes.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Alternatively we could tax everyone the same.
You're presumably talking about public service DB pensions. My private sector DB pension was paid for at the time.
And for public sector DB pension recipients, why should they be penalised for the failings of their employer? Had those pensions been paid for at the time we'd still all have been paying for them as taxpayers.
As you know, I have always agreed with you that earned income should be taxed at the same or lower rates as unearned income (be that pensions or dividends).
Comments
Sunak's pitstop etc etc.
Will any of the journalists there address this issue .
Because digital nomads won’t impinge on the welfare system. Everyone expat in thailand goes private - Thailand’s private medicine and dentistry are excellent and relatively cheap
So Thailand just gets lots of people spending money and boosting the economy
The Conservatives have also been saying the same thing as an 'aspiration to reduce immigration' since the Cameron days (what was it? 'tens of thousands', we were promised in 2010) and have done bugger all. 14 years later we are seeing 750k a year net.
As far as I'm aware all Labour have said so far is they want a 'points based system' but that doesn't give any concrete detail. Labour have said nothing on immigration that stops me voting for them. But how they will actually tackle the issues in practice seems like a lot of handwaving to me at the moment. I want concrete numbers, and I want a lot more focus on building infrastructure to cope with existing numbers, rather than wishy washy promises to reduce future numbers.
But I don't see it as being as black and white as you. Different things work for different families.
Still, all the best - exciting times ahead
Just do what I have done, tune into sports channels and enjoy the garden/ outdoors
It is good for your wellbeing and I will go to bed early on the 4th July and wake up for breakfast on the 5th July and whatever the results , so be it
"Roger -
Something pretty exciting is happening today: the first votes are being cast by post.
While polling day is 22 days away, an incredible 8,077,398 of postal voters - that’s almost 20% of people registered to vote - will start to vote early from today.
So we cannot wait. From now, we are treating every day like it’s polling day to make sure voters hear our message and vote for Labour.
In some constituencies, victory and defeat could be decided by postal votes. Especially in seats where we’re ambitiously striving to overturn huge Tory majorities.
Will you make a £15 donation to Labour’s get out the postal vote efforts right now? We’ll invest it immediately in our work to earn every vote we can across Britain."
https://x.com/brianeno/status/1800439379338633554?s=46&t=fJymV-V84rexmlQMLXHHJQ
In Thailand I could easily afford to live even if I only get four or five days of freelance work a month, which is about what I get on average this year. Untaxed and in Thailand, two grand will go a very long way. Plus, no need to draw down on my investment portfolio. Win-win.
No, I'm not going to fucking applaud you for doing a big boy dump on the carpet, Rishi.
Another unfunded tax cut from Sunak.
Pensions that were not funded at the time and instead set up on the basis that future workers would pay for the costs instead then they'd get future pensions afterwards, except then the ladder was removed and those pensions aren't available to today's workers.
So we have a triple whammy of needing to pay for pensions that were never costed at the time, not being eligible for those ourselves despite paying for them, AND having to pay higher taxes too.
https://x.com/steve_hawkes/status/1800485586395926737
He has, for instance, stood alongside Roger Waters in solidarity with “Chris Williamson” against Zionism - and he continually obsesses about Israel and has done so long before the latest conflict
https://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_evstand-jul19.html
So maybe a “decent endorsement” if you are Jeremy Corbyn. Otherwise maybe not
What he said:
‘We are the Party of Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson’
What he didn’t say:
And of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson
And this is the essential weakness of our system. If one had to fix a failing company who would say,
"Hey, let's bring in a team that has never done anything like this before"?
"Let's make a public sector lawyer the CEO and a team of lightweights none of whom have ever run anything. That'll make a nice change. But it is OK, many of them were leading figures in their university Students' Unions."
You have not paid a penny of my DB pension, unless you contributed to the profits of those companies I worked for, and then presumably you did so because you chose to.
Smog from burning crops and fields - lazy farmers - can be an issue, however
TO SECURE OUR COMMUNITIES… WE WILL DELIVER:
92,000 extra nurses and 28,000 extra doctors – while driving up NHS productivity.
8,000 more full time police officers so every police ward has a new officer.
1.6 million more good homes while protecting our countryside.
So given the lead time to train a doctor where are you going to get 28,000 from...
and building 300,000 homes is going to be fun when we struggle to build 150,000 a year...
The economic debate over the Tory manifesto is well underway
Paul Johnson of the IFS points out that the spending measures are concrete - tax cuts, defence etc.
But the savings from welfare cuts and reducing tax avoidance and evasion are far from certain
Sunak will face questions over economic credibility that Labour will play directly into
Keir Starmer already comparing Tory manifesto with Jeremy Corbyn's offering from 2019
No you fucking haven't.
That is a bare faced and total lie.
It also means you don't get constant shuffling of rolls during a Parliament as people try to get closer the the 'top' of the Cabinet.
Their policy would of course all need to go through Parliament. Would be an argument for fewer statutory instruments that don't.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-last-great-war-of-antiquity/james-howard-johnston/9780198830191
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57280855-the-last-great-war-of-antiquity
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-06-11/four-us-college-teachers-stabbed-in-park-in-china
Jeremy Hunt to be fair to him is good. He's got the right priorities and tackling NI, a tax solely on work not income, is absolutely completely the right thing to do.
What a shame Sunak has instead chosen to do a campaign centred around such offensive bullshit as National Service.
Most young people nowadays work, even if going to University, and many typically work weekends.
The idea of giving up some weekends to do something good might suit Tarquin and Jemima who go through Uni on Mummy and Daddy's income, but for those responsible young adults who have jobs and commitments at 18 to see them through it is an ill thought through, offensive and ridiculous piece of nonsense.
Rishi Sunak just reeled off a list of his Home Secretaries. And missed out
@SuellaBraverman
😬
David Duguid anyone?
Even for Starmer that's breathtakingly brazen, given that he campaigned to make Jeremy Corbyn PM, then ran on a Corbynite manifesto to become Labour leader before casually ditching all the pledges he made a few months into becoming Labour leader.
Such staggering hypocrisy and no-one ever calls him on it.
Doing the job may have got the contractual entitlement but it was absolutely never paid for at the time.
Defined contribution schemes are paid for at the time. DB schemes were not.
If DB schemes were paid for at the time they wouldn't cost us a penny today. That's not the case.
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
9m
Daft idea. Treasury has been trying to reduce the tax incentive for people to pretend to be self-employed
How does that work, when the gas comes from dictators?
There's no reason we can't do more.
Fantasy land.
https://x.com/unmaskedantifa/status/1800483951364231432?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Case in point - a recent project for a large UK homebuilder revealed the issue, 2) I need a plaster ASAP and the earliest one I can get with recommendations is 3 weeks time.
But they were never paid for at the time. The bill was passed on.
We're still paying today for DB schemes. Every taxpayer is.
Instead of NI being a higher rate of tax on employment, a higher rate of tax on DB pensions to reflect the way they were unfunded and still need paying for would make more sense.
Alternatively we could tax everyone the same.
ETA and you can apply for a postal vote until Wednesday next week.
They think they are the last heroes fighting the coming nightfall. Totally self unaware like all violent zealots
You beat Farage with your words, only ever your words.
I'd say both Starmer and Sunak have more impressive CVs than David Cameron or Tony Blair on entering office.
Similarly both Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves seem much better qualified to be Chancellor than Gordon Brown or George Osborne, neither of whom even studied economics.
Does anyone in CCHQ have any idea what they are doing?
In each case where existing scheme members were prevented from accruing additional benefits and moved onto a less generous regime, it's because the scheme was viewed to gave been adequately funded to cover its liabilities up until that point but that, going forward, it wouldn't be (too expensive for the firm, and hiking the contributions by the members to deal with the problem would've made them too expensive for us.) In short, the trustees were ensuring that the scheme remained properly funded based on existing contributions, and NOT expecting future contributions to cover existing pensioner benefits.
This is all quite different from the situation with the state pension and the bonkers triple lock, which is a one way ratchet designed to redistribute wealth from working age taxpayers to current pensioners, of course.
And for public sector DB pension recipients, why should they be penalised for the failings of their employer? Had those pensions been paid for at the time we'd still all have been paying for them as taxpayers.
As you know, I have always agreed with you that earned income should be taxed at the same or lower rates as unearned income (be that pensions or dividends).
Q: How can we have highest taxes in 70 years AND struggling public services AND rising debt?
A: Combination of sky high debt interest payments, more spending on health and welfare, and poor growth.
https://x.com/PJTheEconomist/status/1800125036042592761