From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
There is absolutely a loss. A cultural loss for one. The right has been raging against “citizens of nowhere” and parading the loss of the “nation”. A proper functioning nation would and should enable our successful businesspeople to live in places like Mayfair and Knightsbridge if they want. It does not serve us to have areas of our capital city only accessible to Saudi princes who are treated at government level that because of their wealth the laws don’t apply to them.
Attracting outside investment is important but investment in the fabric and business of this country is one thing but wealth that is only here on a prostituted basis and could be removed at a moments notice puts far too much political and economic power in the hands of a few in my view.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
LOL, no.
I'd say if anyone has a closed mind, it is you - which is why you fall back on the tired tropes of 'centrist dad' and 'waycisstttt'.
I think I understand where much of MAGA's support comes from. But here's the point: that does not mean I *agree* with many of their reasons/excuses for that support, or think their opponents should just roll over and cave in. You do little but blame the Dems for the actions of the Republicans and MAGA.
If the PM's recent performance is anything to go by he'll compromise with Ed Miliband and throw F1 out of the country to reduce carbon emissions.
Or give them the Isle of Man.
Back in 1955 I was upbraided as a smart Alec by our geography master when I said that "Man" and "Wight" were the same thing (I had a dictionary, see)
I was often being criticised for being such at school (and similar, like "know-it-all", and "too clever for own good") and oddly I took it as a compliment. Certainly it didn't deter me.
It used to be said that other languages like phrases badmouthing people for being too intelligent was a peculiarly English phenomenon. This isn't quite true, but nevertheless it's a sinister trait, and maybe partly explains our excessively socialistic leanings.
Or maybe people just don't like being made to feel stupid themselves. In which case, of course, they develop some knowledge and wit of their own.
Don't worry @Fishing: your classmates were being sarcastic.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
You're missing the point, think of all those providing personal services to the wealthy and, down the tree, those who airb'n'b property to them. How will they afford their velveteen bordello makeovers?
OT check if your browser needs updating (menu > help > about) as Google has discovered a nasty vulnerability in Chrome and therefore probably all the other browsers apart from Firefox. If you shutdown every night like this is 1987 you should be OK.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
Sounds like you want Hillary Clinton, Cameron and Clegg back.
Voters voted for Brexit, Trump, Corbyn, Farage and Johnson precisely because they felt so called centrist government was not delivering for them
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
I'm sure Ireland will make up the difference.
Why does the parasite country of the western world never receive any criticism ?
Ditto Austria.
Yes, I've been astounded for many years that Ireland never receives any criticism on here.
LOL.
In any even, it's close to irrelevant whataboutery. While it doesn't absolve them from quite justified criticism, Ireland's contribution, or lack of it, will make almost no difference to the outcome of the invasion.
I've been impressed by how much Denmark has done to assist Ukraine.
Denmark has a population of 5.9 million and a GDP of ~$400bn Ireland has a population of 5.1 million and a GDP of ~$550bn (albeit distorted by tax haven shenanigans)
While Ireland matching Denmark's contribution would not, on its own, make a large difference, in combination with the Nordics and Baltics it would help to add up to a substantial amount.
It wasn't the criticism of Ireland which irked me; it was the whataboutery. (Though short of actually invading Ireland, there's no real way for us to influence their stance of selfish neutrality.)
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
If your last sentence is true (that we've started deporting rich people) I agree it's an absolute scandal. The right approach is be neither punitive nor a soft touch on tax for HNWIs and allow them the choice (subject to personal circumstances) of where to settle and make a life.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
Thank you.
First off, it's not envy at least not from my side. MY nagging concern is you are creating a class of citizen who would perhaps not see things the way I do (and I don't mean politically). It would be easy for them to think they are doing us a favour by being here and every infraction or incident (and we know they happen) would lead to a threat to leave and a climbdown from a compliant Government.
That's not how society should operate with one group of citizens thinking they have some form of leverage simply by being here. I'm also concerned bringing more people into private health care (laudable and valuable as that sounds) reduces the amount of specialist care available in the NHS given the same group of specialists and consultants operate in both sectors but I'm sure that could be resolved.
I'm also of the view we should be empowering our own citizens to create businesses rather than relying on external largesse. In many countries, if you want to reside, it's not just a question of having your own wealth but investing in the country itself and I'd like to see that as a prerequisite for admission.
What you're proposing was mentioned by those supporting our exit from the European Union in 2016 but you and I both know the overwhelming majority of wealthy incomers would bring their income to London and how much this new largesse would spread through the rest of the country is open to question.
It's probably value at the odds, but what on earth was the moderate wing of the Democrat party doing allowing Boris Cuomo to run.
Who thought that was a good idea - to me it says more about the Democrats than him and it's not great.
It's not that they 'allowed' him; a large number of them endorsed him. They have some very talented national figures, but the current internal party leadership is not really fit for purpose.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
I'm sure Ireland will make up the difference.
Why does the parasite country of the western world never receive any criticism ?
Ditto Austria.
Yes, I've been astounded for many years that Ireland never receives any criticism on here.
LOL.
In any even, it's close to irrelevant whataboutery. While it doesn't absolve them from quite justified criticism, Ireland's contribution, or lack of it, will make almost no difference to the outcome of the invasion.
I've been impressed by how much Denmark has done to assist Ukraine.
Denmark has a population of 5.9 million and a GDP of ~$400bn Ireland has a population of 5.1 million and a GDP of ~$550bn (albeit distorted by tax haven shenanigans)
While Ireland matching Denmark's contribution would not, on its own, make a large difference, in combination with the Nordics and Baltics it would help to add up to a substantial amount.
It wasn't the criticism of Ireland which irked me; it was the whataboutery. (Though short of actually invading Ireland, there's no real way for us to influence their stance of selfish neutrality.)
Smaller nations have fewer responsibilities in NATO than large ones ?
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
I'm sure Ireland will make up the difference.
Why does the parasite country of the western world never receive any criticism ?
Ditto Austria.
Yes, I've been astounded for many years that Ireland never receives any criticism on here.
LOL.
In any even, it's close to irrelevant whataboutery. While it doesn't absolve them from quite justified criticism, Ireland's contribution, or lack of it, will make almost no difference to the outcome of the invasion.
I've been impressed by how much Denmark has done to assist Ukraine.
Denmark has a population of 5.9 million and a GDP of ~$400bn Ireland has a population of 5.1 million and a GDP of ~$550bn (albeit distorted by tax haven shenanigans)
While Ireland matching Denmark's contribution would not, on its own, make a large difference, in combination with the Nordics and Baltics it would help to add up to a substantial amount.
It wasn't the criticism of Ireland which irked me; it was the whataboutery. (Though short of actually invading Ireland, there's no real way for us to influence their stance of selfish neutrality.)
Smaller nations have fewer responsibilities in NATO than large ones ?
They generally pay up in proportion to their proximity to Russia. And Ireland is not a member.
One of the Americans that the US Justice Dept said was getting $400k/month from the Russian government in exchange for pushing Kremlin narratives is now promoting US concentration camps. https://x.com/JayinKyiv/status/1940122313204318619
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
The UK is a good place to be super-rich. Expecting such people to make an income tax contribution is hardly unreasonable.
If people feel so little connection to this country that they resent making such a contribution, well maybe they had better go elsewhere.
It's not income tax that has driven these people out, it's IHT rule changes. Most were already paying income tax but object to the UK taking a charge on their global assets for IHT purposes despite not being UK citizens. It's a stupid change in the law and the government needs to reverse it asap or we'll lose more ultra high net worth contributors and blow a bigger hole in public finances than already exists.
Ps I was unwell yesterday and had excellent treatment on the NHS. Blood tests and CT scan within 3 hours and results within 4. Discharged with medicine and back to work today. Can’t complain really, that level of service in the US would have cost thousands.
It cost thousands in the UK too, you just didn't see the bill, nor are you expected to pay beyond your normal contributions through tax.
NEGUSE: I think you're missing one. A new tax break for whalers, right? Up to $50,000, right? Why was that added?
SMITH: You'd have to talk to the senators.
NEGUSE: I think it’s emblematic of the broken process… we will find different provisions that different senators for their own purposes—one of them was this deduction for the 160 people or so who will be able to claim in in Alaska so one of the senators from Alaska could feel comfortable voting for the bill.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
It's probably value at the odds, but what on earth was the moderate wing of the Democrat party doing allowing Boris Cuomo to run.
Who thought that was a good idea - to me it says more about the Democrats than him and it's not great.
The Dems have the same problem the GOP had.
They have a corrupt, corporate, incompetent establishment which has lost empathy to the 'little people'.
They've created a huge space for any radical outsider, from within or without the party, to move into.
This in not the first time either - look how after eight years of St Barack of Obama as President the Dem nomination was nearly won by geriatric socialist Bernie Sanders.
Trump might have been a blessing for the establishment Dems - it gave them an opponent to rally against and delay their decline.
Ps I was unwell yesterday and had excellent treatment on the NHS. Blood tests and CT scan within 3 hours and results within 4. Discharged with medicine and back to work today. Can’t complain really, that level of service in the US would have cost thousands.
It cost thousands in the UK too, you just didn't see the bill, nor are you expected to pay beyond your normal contributions through tax.
Well yeah. That’s my point. However here we don’t need to pay for the overheads and profits of multiple companies and insurers.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
If your last sentence is true (that we've started deporting rich people) I agree it's an absolute scandal. The right approach is be neither punitive nor a soft touch on tax for HNWIs and allow them the choice (subject to personal circumstances) of where to settle and make a life.
Rich people are not being deported. Some rich people have chosen to leave for tax reasons.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
Sounds like you want Hillary Clinton, Cameron and Clegg back.
Voters voted for Brexit, Trump, Corbyn, Farage and Johnson precisely because they felt so called centrist government was not delivering for them
The establishment centrists tended to be incompetent, self-serving, corrupt and unempathetic.
The radicals which are replacing them are no better but they pretend to care.
WE HATE THE PEOPLE WHO HATE YOU is the underlying slogan of the radicals and there's some justification to it.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
Sounds like you want Hillary Clinton, Cameron and Clegg back.
Voters voted for Brexit, Trump, Corbyn, Farage and Johnson precisely because they felt so called centrist government was not delivering for them
The establishment centrists tended to be incompetent, self-serving, corrupt and unempathetic.
The radicals which are replacing them are no better but they pretend to care.
WE HATE THE PEOPLE WHO HATE YOU is the underlying slogan of the radicals and there's some justification to it.
It's just a souped-up version of "They're annoying all the right people" and it's just as moronic.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
I'm sure Ireland will make up the difference.
Why does the parasite country of the western world never receive any criticism ?
Ditto Austria.
Yes, I've been astounded for many years that Ireland never receives any criticism on here.
LOL.
In any even, it's close to irrelevant whataboutery. While it doesn't absolve them from quite justified criticism, Ireland's contribution, or lack of it, will make almost no difference to the outcome of the invasion.
I've been impressed by how much Denmark has done to assist Ukraine.
Denmark has a population of 5.9 million and a GDP of ~$400bn Ireland has a population of 5.1 million and a GDP of ~$550bn (albeit distorted by tax haven shenanigans)
While Ireland matching Denmark's contribution would not, on its own, make a large difference, in combination with the Nordics and Baltics it would help to add up to a substantial amount.
It wasn't the criticism of Ireland which irked me; it was the whataboutery. (Though short of actually invading Ireland, there's no real way for us to influence their stance of selfish neutrality.)
Smaller nations have fewer responsibilities in NATO than large ones ?
The news is that the US has stopped providing ammunition and other supplies to Ukraine, but now we're talking about Ireland instead, which is no more of an issue today than it was yesterday.
The news about the US challenges all of our assumptions about the mutual defence of democracies since WWII. It's evidence of Trump's loyalties and his duplicity - just a few days ago he was talking about maybe providing more supplies to Ukraine, but his actions are different.
The change in US policy is a major problem. The continuation of Irish neutrality is a minor annoyance by comparison.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
For capitalism to make sense the vast majority of people need to be able to participate, i.e. have some capital available to risk and invest. However if I (a higher rate tax payer without children) am struggling to accumulate any real capital other than my house (which I realistically cannot risk) then how am I supposed to participate in capitalism properly?
The same is repeated across the country and especially in the SE.
The over reliance on a relatively few wealthy people to do capitalism is a recipe for disaster in my view.
Having watched my father and my aunt in hospital, recently, there seems to be a common thread across hospitals. This matches previous experiences in the NHS, by the way.
There is terrible, terrible communication. Due to the comedies with staffing, you get an ever changing cast of medics. And the various systems of notes don’t seem to give them all the information they require to get up to speed.
This lack of communication is especially evident across functions. So post discharge care is completely disconnected from the medical teams in the hospitals.
The other thing this creates is a pull, rather than push system of patient care. The patients who speak up, or have pushy relatives get better care.
When you sum this up, the phrase “organisational negligence” comes to mind.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
Thank you.
First off, it's not envy at least not from my side. MY nagging concern is you are creating a class of citizen who would perhaps not see things the way I do (and I don't mean politically). It would be easy for them to think they are doing us a favour by being here and every infraction or incident (and we know they happen) would lead to a threat to leave and a climbdown from a compliant Government.
That's not how society should operate with one group of citizens thinking they have some form of leverage simply by being here. I'm also concerned bringing more people into private health care (laudable and valuable as that sounds) reduces the amount of specialist care available in the NHS given the same group of specialists and consultants operate in both sectors but I'm sure that could be resolved.
I'm also of the view we should be empowering our own citizens to create businesses rather than relying on external largesse. In many countries, if you want to reside, it's not just a question of having your own wealth but investing in the country itself and I'd like to see that as a prerequisite for admission.
What you're proposing was mentioned by those supporting our exit from the European Union in 2016 but you and I both know the overwhelming majority of wealthy incomers would bring their income to London and how much this new largesse would spread through the rest of the country is open to question.
I do understand your points entirely and I come from a place where I love the UK and wish it to be the most successful economy in the world but I also feel that there is too much opposition to being aggressive with regards to attracting wealthy incomers and business based on idealism and envy (sorry I wasn’t specifically levelling that at you earlier) rather than having to swallow the less palatable for the greater good.
Just as an example, where I live (like many other places currently) we have specific arms length gov entities whose role is to attract in wealthy individuals.
One is aimed squarely at those who already have the wealth and want to protect it. They pay (in simple terms) low levels on income tax with a minimum in place and like everyone else here, no CGT or IHT. They are adding to the general tax take, they pay a big Stamp Duty on their property as there is a minimum value they have to spend on their home (they aren’t allowed investment property). These are nice to have not just for the additional tax take but they are generally people who have got involved in society and throw money towards charity, arts etc.
The other entity however is the one that damages the UK the most, and I think the UK needs to have a carve out of tax to ape.
This entity is purely focussed on bringing digital and tech business here. They chase UK people who have set up and own tech businesses and point out they can move their business here, employ themselves and in return they pay the low fixed rate income tax that everyone pays but they obviously avoid CGT and IHT. They have to employ a minimum amount of people here to retain their licence.
They aren’t getting a special tax rate but then the tax here is low - the key attraction is that they can move to a low tax jurisdiction without having sold up their businesses and avoid other restrictions and build their business without the prospect of CGT and IHT taking large chunks of their future wealth.
These are all businesses that are successful and innovative that are leaving or left the UK now, not just here but lots of places doing the same.
Just imagine if the UK could be saying to global entrepreneurs and tech people “if you move to the UK and move your business and guarantee numbers of employees then you get a special tax code that exempts you from IHT and CGT. It would be so attractive and bring business, enterprise, jobs and tax take that would likely never have come before. You could even go so far as to create zones where the businesses have to be located to spread it around.
Ps I was unwell yesterday and had excellent treatment on the NHS. Blood tests and CT scan within 3 hours and results within 4. Discharged with medicine and back to work today. Can’t complain really, that level of service in the US would have cost thousands.
I've also had some recent interaction with the NHS. Basically not too bad but a 90 minute delay for minor surgery on Saturday was disconcerting though to be fair the actual procedure was done expertly and without too much pain.
As there was a group of us waiting for various bits and pieces to be done (removed, added, hacked off you don't ask) it was very convivial with a lot of light hearted banter. I asked the doctor where he'd put the hacksaw and the leeches - I'm sure he'd heard that a million times before - and he commented they stopped using them last month.
Having watched my father and my aunt in hospital, recently, there seems to be a common thread across hospitals. This matches previous experiences in the NHS, by the way.
There is terrible, terrible communication. Due to the comedies with staffing, you get an ever changing cast of medics. And the various systems of notes don’t seem to give them all the information they require to get up to speed.
This lack of communication is especially evident across functions. So post discharge care is completely disconnected from the medical teams in the hospitals.
The other thing this creates is a pull, rather than push system of patient care. The patients who speak up, or have pushy relatives get better care.
When you sum this up, the phrase “organisational negligence” comes to mind.
Last year I had coffee with a friend who told me a friend of hers had had to have three blood tests to confirm something she already knew because each individual doctor/nurse insisted on seeing the result for themselves.
If the PM's recent performance is anything to go by he'll compromise with Ed Miliband and throw F1 out of the country to reduce carbon emissions.
Or give them the Isle of Man.
Back in 1955 I was upbraided as a smart Alec by our geography master when I said that "Man" and "Wight" were the same thing (I had a dictionary, see)
I was often being criticised for being such at school (and similar, like "know-it-all", and "too clever for own good") and oddly I took it as a compliment. Certainly it didn't deter me.
It used to be said that other languages like phrases badmouthing people for being too intelligent was a peculiarly English phenomenon. This isn't quite true, but nevertheless it's a sinister trait, and maybe partly explains our excessively socialistic leanings.
Or maybe people just don't like being made to feel stupid themselves. In which case, of course, they develop some knowledge and wit of their own.
There's also the tradition of a playground beating for the kid who raises their arm in a class to give an answer. That didn't happen much at my school but it did at my brother's
England has always had a bit of an anti-intellectual tradition. To some extent it's a suspicion of those who step out of line, who try hard - but those who put in extra effort in PE or in non-academic subjects seldom faced the same hostility.
Happy to report that that tradition seems less common at my daughters' schools than it did at mine.
Can't help thinking this is one way in which the startling high proportion of Asian children of various stripes at their respective schools has changed the culture positively.
Though the Saudi boy in my daughter's year 4 class who took it on himself to stand up behind his chair to answer a question and who frequently upbraided his classmates with 'the teacher said we must be quiet' clearly found English schools something of a culture shock.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
You can understand where MAGA support comes from while still criticising it. In fact most of the criticism from “centrist dads” goes towards MAGA politicians who shamelessly lurch from one position to a completely contradictory one depending on what Daddy Trump says. The polls suggest that Trump’s policies do not enjoy majority support in the US so it’s not really a silent majority thing.
I note that the “Big Beautiful Bill” delays the painful provisions until 2028 so that the Democrats get the blame if they win then. That’s good politics but pretty shameless. Nobody is interested in good governance.
It's a cesspit over there, it really is. Presided over by an individual who is far and away the most unsuitable ever to hold office in a western democracy let alone the biggest, wealthiest, most powerful one.
And look at the pathetic way he's covered in the mainstream media. The BBC headline yesterday, "Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' is passed". I mean, wtf is that? Why is the Beeb - the Beeb - calling it that? Why is our national broadcaster playing along with his stupid infantile language?
Some might feel this is trivial but it's not. It's all part of the dumbdown poison he's spreading throughout the body politic, conversation and debate, and life in general. Grrrrr.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
If your last sentence is true (that we've started deporting rich people) I agree it's an absolute scandal. The right approach is be neither punitive nor a soft touch on tax for HNWIs and allow them the choice (subject to personal circumstances) of where to settle and make a life.
We should absolutely be a soft touch on tax for HNWIs because of the non-taxation benefits they bring to the country. This is always a difficult point for socialists to grasp, but they aren't just ATMs to be milked for the public sector, and should be assessed on the benefits they bring to the country as a whole. They consume disproportinately where they live, which drives up employment and GDP, they start and grow businesses, which employ people, they make charitable contributions, etc., etc. Of course they should probably pay something, as they use government services like the rest of us, but even if they don't, we still benefit hugely from having them here.
We are lucky to have them, and are mad to let them leave at the current rate, let alone actively celebrate this disaster.
And the fact that the Frogs and other opportunists who wish us ill are delightedly rolling out the red carpet for them should tell even the thickest socialist something.
But then of course if they were flexible or intelligent enough to grasp economic reality, they wouldn't be socialists in the first place.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
I'm sure Ireland will make up the difference.
Why does the parasite country of the western world never receive any criticism ?
Ditto Austria.
Yes, I've been astounded for many years that Ireland never receives any criticism on here.
LOL.
In any even, it's close to irrelevant whataboutery. While it doesn't absolve them from quite justified criticism, Ireland's contribution, or lack of it, will make almost no difference to the outcome of the invasion.
I've been impressed by how much Denmark has done to assist Ukraine.
Denmark has a population of 5.9 million and a GDP of ~$400bn Ireland has a population of 5.1 million and a GDP of ~$550bn (albeit distorted by tax haven shenanigans)
While Ireland matching Denmark's contribution would not, on its own, make a large difference, in combination with the Nordics and Baltics it would help to add up to a substantial amount.
It wasn't the criticism of Ireland which irked me; it was the whataboutery. (Though short of actually invading Ireland, there's no real way for us to influence their stance of selfish neutrality.)
Smaller nations have fewer responsibilities in NATO than large ones ?
The news is that the US has stopped providing ammunition and other supplies to Ukraine, but now we're talking about Ireland instead, which is no more of an issue today than it was yesterday.
The news about the US challenges all of our assumptions about the mutual defence of democracies since WWII. It's evidence of Trump's loyalties and his duplicity - just a few days ago he was talking about maybe providing more supplies to Ukraine, but his actions are different.
The change in US policy is a major problem. The continuation of Irish neutrality is a minor annoyance by comparison.
Where were all these countries when Ireland was invaded - and where are they now when part is still occupied?
(An illustration of some of the odd 'whataboutery' that passes for political analysis )
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
If you had greater equality then I would expect that the standard of the lowest quartile of housing in Britain would be a lot higher - less mould and damp, warmer, less overcrowding, room for children to do their homework and have some privacy.
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Depressing but unsurprising news from the Trump administration, lets hope their European neighbours can stay firm and pick up the slack to help support Ukraine. Also wish that other Western leaders would leave the Whitehouse phone to ring a bit longer before answering these days.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
LOL, no.
I'd say if anyone has a closed mind, it is you - which is why you fall back on the tired tropes of 'centrist dad' and 'waycisstttt'.
I think I understand where much of MAGA's support comes from. But here's the point: that does not mean I *agree* with many of their reasons/excuses for that support, or think their opponents should just roll over and cave in. You do little but blame the Dems for the actions of the Republicans and MAGA.
Why shouldn't the Dems not be blamed for their actions ?
From financing MAGA candidates to tolerating illegal immigration to becoming a gerontocracy they've disgraced themselves.
I don't see things in a manichaean 'my party good, their party bad' way.
Trump and his gang belong in jail, the GOP needs to be purged of MAGA - while understanding why MAGA became so alluring to its voters.
But the Dems need to understand where they've gone wrong before its too late and they become the leftist equivalent of MAGA.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
It's a conflation you see a lot - "wealth creators" and "the wealthy".
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
If your last sentence is true (that we've started deporting rich people) I agree it's an absolute scandal. The right approach is be neither punitive nor a soft touch on tax for HNWIs and allow them the choice (subject to personal circumstances) of where to settle and make a life.
We should absolutely be a soft touch on tax for HNWIs because of the non-taxation benefits they bring to the country. This is always a difficult point for socialists to grasp, but they aren't just ATMs to be milked for the public sector, and should be assessed on the benefits they bring to the country as a whole. They consume disproportinately where they live, which drives up employment and GDP, they start and grow businesses, which employ people, they make charitable contributions, etc., etc. Of course they should probably pay something, as they use government services like the rest of us, but even if they don't, we still benefit hugely from having them here.
We are lucky to have them, and are mad to let them leave at the current rate, let alone actively celebrate this disaster.
And the fact that the Frogs and other opportunists who wish us ill are delightedly rolling out the red carpet for them should tell even the thickest socialist something.
But then of course if they were flexible or intelligent enough to grasp economic reality, they wouldn't be socialists in the first place.
This is just reheated trickle down economics. History has shown how very little trickles down.
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
You can understand where MAGA support comes from while still criticising it. In fact most of the criticism from “centrist dads” goes towards MAGA politicians who shamelessly lurch from one position to a completely contradictory one depending on what Daddy Trump says. The polls suggest that Trump’s policies do not enjoy majority support in the US so it’s not really a silent majority thing.
I note that the “Big Beautiful Bill” delays the painful provisions until 2028 so that the Democrats get the blame if they win then. That’s good politics but pretty shameless. Nobody is interested in good governance.
It's a cesspit over there, it really is. Presided over by an individual who is far and away the most unsuitable ever to hold office in a western democracy let alone the biggest, wealthiest, most powerful one.
And look at the pathetic way he's covered in the mainstream media. The BBC headline yesterday, "Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' is passed". I mean, wtf is that? Why is the Beeb - the Beeb - calling it that? Why is our national broadcaster playing along with his stupid infantile language?
Some might feel this is trivial but it's not. It's all part of the dumbdown poison he's spreading throughout the body politic, conversation and debate, and life in general. Grrrrr.
It's official name is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That's what the Congressional paperwork calls it. The BBC can't really invent an alternative name
The chief executive of miscarriage of justice body the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has resigned amid attempts to rebuild public confidence in the organisation.
Karen Kneller, who had held the position since 2013, has left her job at the CCRC, it was announced on Wednesday.
Last month former victims commissioner Dame Vera Baird became the interim chair of the CCRC, having been asked by the lord chancellor to carry out a review of the organisation.
The CCRC has been heavily criticised for its handling of the Andrew Malkinson case, one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
But they are buying up property and renting it back to us with exorbitant rents. They're investing in banks and funds that lend us money to buy the property that they don't want to own, which is effectively renting it to us, with us taking ownership of the maintenance. They invest in the big companies and utilities that we need to live and snaffle up the shareholder benefits. The rich aren't living here as a favour to us. Sure, we want their taxes but they need us just as much as you say we need them.
Having watched my father and my aunt in hospital, recently, there seems to be a common thread across hospitals. This matches previous experiences in the NHS, by the way.
There is terrible, terrible communication. Due to the comedies with staffing, you get an ever changing cast of medics. And the various systems of notes don’t seem to give them all the information they require to get up to speed.
This lack of communication is especially evident across functions. So post discharge care is completely disconnected from the medical teams in the hospitals.
The other thing this creates is a pull, rather than push system of patient care. The patients who speak up, or have pushy relatives get better care.
When you sum this up, the phrase “organisational negligence” comes to mind.
Last year I had coffee with a friend who told me a friend of hers had had to have three blood tests to confirm something she already knew because each individual doctor/nurse insisted on seeing the result for themselves.
A couple of relatives have life long but treatable conditions.
Because the drugs used are strong and the disease changes over time, regular blood tests are used to check status.
So a blood test is always followed by a GP appointment. Who states that she isn't qualified* to judge the results. And then you can book the consultant.
In a logical world, you’d book the blood test and the consultant, every 3 months, for foreseeable future.
*by the rules. The GP in question is actually quite active and read up on the condition and tests for own interest.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
But they are buying up property and renting it back to us with exorbitant rents. They're investing in banks and funds that lend us money to buy the property that they don't want to own, which is effectively renting it to us, with us taking ownership of the maintenance. They invest in the big companies and utilities that we need to live, and snaffle up the shareholder benefits. The rich aren't living here as a favour to us. Sure, we want their taxes, but they need us just as much as you say we need them.
The seriously rich aren’t doing that - it’s pensions funds (new builds) and those with spare cash and no imagination.
Separately I can safely say the demand for expensive Knightsbridge and similar property is soft as I’m hearing that all day every day when in my clients office
The charges are because they failed to stop Letby, aren't they?
Reporting is speculative - but other negligence is rumoured.
Put it another way. If you take away all the death and incidents attributed to Letby what are you left with? If you take all the deaths and incidents after Letby was locked up, what are you left with?
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
If your last sentence is true (that we've started deporting rich people) I agree it's an absolute scandal. The right approach is be neither punitive nor a soft touch on tax for HNWIs and allow them the choice (subject to personal circumstances) of where to settle and make a life.
We should absolutely be a soft touch on tax for HNWIs because of the non-taxation benefits they bring to the country. This is always a difficult point for socialists to grasp, but they aren't just ATMs to be milked for the public sector, and should be assessed on the benefits they bring to the country as a whole. They consume disproportinately where they live, which drives up employment and GDP, they start and grow businesses, which employ people, they make charitable contributions, etc., etc. Of course they should probably pay something, as they use government services like the rest of us, but even if they don't, we still benefit hugely from having them here.
We are lucky to have them, and are mad to let them leave at the current rate, let alone actively celebrate this disaster.
And the fact that the Frogs and other opportunists who wish us ill are delightedly rolling out the red carpet for them should tell even the thickest socialist something.
But then of course if they were flexible or intelligent enough to grasp economic reality, they wouldn't be socialists in the first place.
Though the stats indicate that Labour support as a % is higher in the more highly educated/qualified demographics, right wing populism as a % higher in the less well-educated...
There doesn't seem to be consensus on the +/- impact of HNWI for countries, there is certainly evidence that they can negatively impact the standard of living for others.
Perhaps a comparison of poverty levels and "happiness" indices in countries with high and low income inequality could provide an indication.
If the PM's recent performance is anything to go by he'll compromise with Ed Miliband and throw F1 out of the country to reduce carbon emissions.
Or give them the Isle of Man.
Back in 1955 I was upbraided as a smart Alec by our geography master when I said that "Man" and "Wight" were the same thing (I had a dictionary, see)
I was often being criticised for being such at school (and similar, like "know-it-all", and "too clever for own good") and oddly I took it as a compliment. Certainly it didn't deter me.
It used to be said that other languages like phrases badmouthing people for being too intelligent was a peculiarly English phenomenon. This isn't quite true, but nevertheless it's a sinister trait, and maybe partly explains our excessively socialistic leanings.
Or maybe people just don't like being made to feel stupid themselves. In which case, of course, they develop some knowledge and wit of their own.
Don't worry @Fishing: your classmates were being sarcastic.
I realize upon rereading that came over as rather nastier than I meant it. Sorry @Fishing
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
But they are buying up property and renting it back to us with exorbitant rents. They're investing in banks and funds that lend us money to buy the property that they don't want to own, which is effectively renting it to us, with us taking ownership of the maintenance. They invest in the big companies and utilities that we need to live, and snaffle up the shareholder benefits. The rich aren't living here as a favour to us. Sure, we want their taxes, but they need us just as much as you say we need them.
You can restrict their right to buy investment properties like we do but you also need people to invest in buying properties to rent otherwise there aren’t enough properties to rent and therefore more people are priced out of the rental market.
You need them to be investing in the banks and funds and utilities because your Fire Service Pension is also investing in these things and if there is no extra investment coming in from outside sources the growth of pension funds will not cover the outgoings.
If these wealthy people are not here do you honestly think that suddenly your average Jo is going to step in and start buying shares in utilise to replac that investment?
If it’s truly an area where the existing population is in direct competition then restrict it, property investment, no access to state funded education, no access to free healthcare/must be insured so even A&E covered. Otherwise take the money and the potential jobs.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
If your last sentence is true (that we've started deporting rich people) I agree it's an absolute scandal. The right approach is be neither punitive nor a soft touch on tax for HNWIs and allow them the choice (subject to personal circumstances) of where to settle and make a life.
We should absolutely be a soft touch on tax for HNWIs because of the non-taxation benefits they bring to the country. This is always a difficult point for socialists to grasp, but they aren't just ATMs to be milked for the public sector, and should be assessed on the benefits they bring to the country as a whole. They consume disproportinately where they live, which drives up employment and GDP, they start and grow businesses, which employ people, they make charitable contributions, etc., etc. Of course they should probably pay something, as they use government services like the rest of us, but even if they don't, we still benefit hugely from having them here.
We are lucky to have them, and are mad to let them leave at the current rate, let alone actively celebrate this disaster.
And the fact that the Frogs and other opportunists who wish us ill are delightedly rolling out the red carpet for them should tell even the thickest socialist something.
But then of course if they were flexible or intelligent enough to grasp economic reality, they wouldn't be socialists in the first place.
Mmm, trickledown. The shoeshine economy. This is shallow reductive thinking. You're stuck in the last century. I wouldn't mention it if it weren't for your regular claim of intellectual superiority over anybody on the Left. The truth is, and this is saying something, you rival Leon for the gap between self-perceived intelligence and the rather more mundane reality.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
Thank you.
First off, it's not envy at least not from my side. MY nagging concern is you are creating a class of citizen who would perhaps not see things the way I do (and I don't mean politically). It would be easy for them to think they are doing us a favour by being here and every infraction or incident (and we know they happen) would lead to a threat to leave and a climbdown from a compliant Government.
That's not how society should operate with one group of citizens thinking they have some form of leverage simply by being here. I'm also concerned bringing more people into private health care (laudable and valuable as that sounds) reduces the amount of specialist care available in the NHS given the same group of specialists and consultants operate in both sectors but I'm sure that could be resolved.
I'm also of the view we should be empowering our own citizens to create businesses rather than relying on external largesse. In many countries, if you want to reside, it's not just a question of having your own wealth but investing in the country itself and I'd like to see that as a prerequisite for admission.
What you're proposing was mentioned by those supporting our exit from the European Union in 2016 but you and I both know the overwhelming majority of wealthy incomers would bring their income to London and how much this new largesse would spread through the rest of the country is open to question.
I do understand your points entirely and I come from a place where I love the UK and wish it to be the most successful economy in the world but I also feel that there is too much opposition to being aggressive with regards to attracting wealthy incomers and business based on idealism and envy (sorry I wasn’t specifically levelling that at you earlier) rather than having to swallow the less palatable for the greater good.
Just as an example, where I live (like many other places currently) we have specific arms length gov entities whose role is to attract in wealthy individuals.
One is aimed squarely at those who already have the wealth and want to protect it. They pay (in simple terms) low levels on income tax with a minimum in place and like everyone else here, no CGT or IHT. They are adding to the general tax take, they pay a big Stamp Duty on their property as there is a minimum value they have to spend on their home (they aren’t allowed investment property). These are nice to have not just for the additional tax take but they are generally people who have got involved in society and throw money towards charity, arts etc.
The other entity however is the one that damages the UK the most, and I think the UK needs to have a carve out of tax to ape.
This entity is purely focussed on bringing digital and tech business here. They chase UK people who have set up and own tech businesses and point out they can move their business here, employ themselves and in return they pay the low fixed rate income tax that everyone pays but they obviously avoid CGT and IHT. They have to employ a minimum amount of people here to retain their licence.
They aren’t getting a special tax rate but then the tax here is low - the key attraction is that they can move to a low tax jurisdiction without having sold up their businesses and avoid other restrictions and build their business without the prospect of CGT and IHT taking large chunks of their future wealth.
These are all businesses that are successful and innovative that are leaving or left the UK now, not just here but lots of places doing the same.
Just imagine if the UK could be saying to global entrepreneurs and tech people “if you move to the UK and move your business and guarantee numbers of employees then you get a special tax code that exempts you from IHT and CGT. It would be so attractive and bring business, enterprise, jobs and tax take that would likely never have come before. You could even go so far as to create zones where the businesses have to be located to spread it around.
I see @twistedfirestopper3 has put the counter arguments far better than I've been available thus far.
It's all very well having an economic policy which "favours" the mega-rich but that can't be an opportunity for exploitation in the name of profit. That means paying the local wage rates and additional benefits for their workers (let's spread the wealth around) so that they become not just good customers for HMRC but their employees become good customers as well.
The obvious question is why hasn't this been done? The obvious answer is it has but it hasn't perhaps provided the "trickle down" (sorry) of improvement some had hoped. If you are going to sell a policy like this to sceptics like me you have to convince me the benefits will be significant, tangible and will be for the benefit of the country and that as soon as another country offers something better said wealthy won't pack their bags and leave. When it becomes a race to the bottom (in terms of tax), I'm not sure that's a race in which we can participate.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
There's plenty of blame to go around. If she did what she has been convicted of doing the question arises is why she was allowed to continue having children in her care after concerns had been raised. There must come a point when that failure to act is itself criminally negligent.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
If you had greater equality then I would expect that the standard of the lowest quartile of housing in Britain would be a lot higher - less mould and damp, warmer, less overcrowding, room for children to do their homework and have some privacy.
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
All of those things are desirable. But they don't necessarily follow from greater equality; they follow from the poor being better off.
Some advocates of equality do so purely on the grounds of wanting the poor to be better off. This is understandable, but in my view economically wrong: taking money from rich people doesn't allow us to make poor people better off, it just makes us all poorer because the rich people go away.
There are many who advocate making the poor richer by allowing the rich to get rich (see: Peter Mandelson being intensely relaxed, etc). This strikes me as perfectly coherent - indeed, it needs some explaining why this should not be the default position - if we are improving the lot of the weakest in absolute terms - which successive UK governments have done - why should equality matter? If the poor are getting richer, why should it matter if the rich get much richer? Would you rather be at wealth 100 in a society where wealth ranged from 100 to 1000000 and mean wealth was 1000, or would you rather be at wealth 90 in a society where wealtg ranged from 50 to 150 and mean wealth was 100?
There are interesting answers to this - @kinabalu is quite eloquent on it, and I am to some extent persuaded that inequality itself is bad (rather than the more generally understood position that absolute poverty is bad), but it is not immediately obvious why it would be the case.
A thought experiment: under what circumstances would you be happy for the poorest to be poorer in exchange for greater equality? (Poor in this sense refers to all material circumstances: housing, security, health, environmental circumstances - not just income).
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
But they are buying up property and renting it back to us with exorbitant rents. They're investing in banks and funds that lend us money to buy the property that they don't want to own, which is effectively renting it to us, with us taking ownership of the maintenance. They invest in the big companies and utilities that we need to live, and snaffle up the shareholder benefits. The rich aren't living here as a favour to us. Sure, we want their taxes, but they need us just as much as you say we need them.
You can restrict their right to buy investment properties like we do but you also need people to invest in buying properties to rent otherwise there aren’t enough properties to rent and therefore more people are priced out of the rental market.
You need them to be investing in the banks and funds and utilities because your Fire Service Pension is also investing in these things and if there is no extra investment coming in from outside sources the growth of pension funds will not cover the outgoings.
If these wealthy people are not here do you honestly think that suddenly your average Jo is going to step in and start buying shares in utilise to replac that investment?
If it’s truly an area where the existing population is in direct competition then restrict it, property investment, no access to state funded education, no access to free healthcare/must be insured so even A&E covered. Otherwise take the money and the potential jobs.
I'd suggest that the speculative investors need longterm investors (pension funds) to make a profit rather than vice-versa. Who else is going to lose money to them when they yo-yo stock prices by shorting/ramping stocks?
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
If you had greater equality then I would expect that the standard of the lowest quartile of housing in Britain would be a lot higher - less mould and damp, warmer, less overcrowding, room for children to do their homework and have some privacy.
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
All of those things are desirable. But they don't necessarily follow from greater equality; they follow from the poor being better off.
Some advocates of equality do so purely on the grounds of wanting the poor to be better off. This is understandable, but in my view economically wrong: taking money from rich people doesn't allow us to make poor people better off, it just makes us all poorer because the rich people go away.
There are many who advocate making the poor richer by allowing the rich to get rich (see: Peter Mandelson being intensely relaxed, etc). This strikes me as perfectly coherent - indeed, it needs some explaining why this should not be the default position - if we are improving the lot of the weakest in absolute terms - which successive UK governments have done - why should equality matter? If the poor are getting richer, why should it matter if the rich get much richer? Would you rather be at wealth 100 in a society where wealth ranged from 100 to 1000000 and mean wealth was 1000, or would you rather be at wealth 90 in a society where wealtg ranged from 50 to 150 and mean wealth was 100?
There are interesting answers to this - @kinabalu is quite eloquent on it, and I am to some extent persuaded that inequality itself is bad (rather than the more generally understood position that absolute poverty is bad), but it is not immediately obvious why it would be the case.
A thought experiment: under what circumstances would you be happy for the poorest to be poorer in exchange for greater equality? (Poor in this sense refers to all material circumstances: housing, security, health, environmental circumstances - not just income).
You're making the assumption that the only way to make society more equal is by teaching the rich to pay benefits to the poor. This is not the case.
I think it is the case that the ruck have got richer by making the poor worse off - high rents, leasehold, rip-off cartels, etc.
The Mandelsonian policy has been a complete failure. Look at where we are now.
Having watched my father and my aunt in hospital, recently, there seems to be a common thread across hospitals. This matches previous experiences in the NHS, by the way.
There is terrible, terrible communication. Due to the comedies with staffing, you get an ever changing cast of medics. And the various systems of notes don’t seem to give them all the information they require to get up to speed.
This lack of communication is especially evident across functions. So post discharge care is completely disconnected from the medical teams in the hospitals.
The other thing this creates is a pull, rather than push system of patient care. The patients who speak up, or have pushy relatives get better care.
When you sum this up, the phrase “organisational negligence” comes to mind.
Judging by my very similar experience, not much has changed in that respect over the last fifteen years, then.
Burned all their bridges with the public on PIP reform and now set fire to the remains with keeping the 2 child cap, as well as proving Badenoch right as the as the one arguing to keep it all along.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Having watched my father and my aunt in hospital, recently, there seems to be a common thread across hospitals. This matches previous experiences in the NHS, by the way.
There is terrible, terrible communication. Due to the comedies with staffing, you get an ever changing cast of medics. And the various systems of notes don’t seem to give them all the information they require to get up to speed.
This lack of communication is especially evident across functions. So post discharge care is completely disconnected from the medical teams in the hospitals.
The other thing this creates is a pull, rather than push system of patient care. The patients who speak up, or have pushy relatives get better care.
When you sum this up, the phrase “organisational negligence” comes to mind.
Last year I had coffee with a friend who told me a friend of hers had had to have three blood tests to confirm something she already knew because each individual doctor/nurse insisted on seeing the result for themselves.
A couple of relatives have life long but treatable conditions.
Because the drugs used are strong and the disease changes over time, regular blood tests are used to check status.
So a blood test is always followed by a GP appointment. Who states that she isn't qualified* to judge the results. And then you can book the consultant.
In a logical world, you’d book the blood test and the consultant, every 3 months, for foreseeable future.
*by the rules. The GP in question is actually quite active and read up on the condition and tests for own interest.
This is, I think, the Lansley reforms, with the GP as the gatekeeper of all care.
Worth noting that for children you often can skip this nonsense - you deal directly with the consultant for the relevant condition. Our daughter has a very minor long term cosmetic thing and even there we have a phone appointment with the consultant each year to stay on their books and have direct contact (each year: "Any change? No, not really. Ok, let's meet again in a year").
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
If the PM's recent performance is anything to go by he'll compromise with Ed Miliband and throw F1 out of the country to reduce carbon emissions.
Or give them the Isle of Man.
Back in 1955 I was upbraided as a smart Alec by our geography master when I said that "Man" and "Wight" were the same thing (I had a dictionary, see)
I was often being criticised for being such at school (and similar, like "know-it-all", and "too clever for own good") and oddly I took it as a compliment. Certainly it didn't deter me.
It used to be said that other languages like phrases badmouthing people for being too intelligent was a peculiarly English phenomenon. This isn't quite true, but nevertheless it's a sinister trait, and maybe partly explains our excessively socialistic leanings.
Or maybe people just don't like being made to feel stupid themselves. In which case, of course, they develop some knowledge and wit of their own.
There's also the tradition of a playground beating for the kid who raises their arm in a class to give an answer. That didn't happen much at my school but it did at my brother's
England has always had a bit of an anti-intellectual tradition. To some extent it's a suspicion of those who step out of line, who try hard - but those who put in extra effort in PE or in non-academic subjects seldom faced the same hostility.
Happy to report that that tradition seems less common at my daughters' schools than it did at mine.
Can't help thinking this is one way in which the startling high proportion of Asian children of various stripes at their respective schools has changed the culture positively.
Though the Saudi boy in my daughter's year 4 class who took it on himself to stand up behind his chair to answer a question and who frequently upbraided his classmates with 'the teacher said we must be quiet' clearly found English schools something of a culture shock.
Other way round at the top, which is why the Establishment is dominated by Oxbridge. Any social media thread on which group is most overpaid will soon have footballers at or near the top. If you want to get a top job, you'd better get a First, and not any First but one from Oxbridge or Russell Group at a pinch.
Indeed, I suspect that particular pendulum has swung too far, and the best workers might turn out to be the ones who ventured out of the library – success in sport, for instance, shows a strong work ethic (hours of practice) and the ability to work in a team. Secretary of the trainspotting club demands project management and administration, and so on.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
If you had greater equality then I would expect that the standard of the lowest quartile of housing in Britain would be a lot higher - less mould and damp, warmer, less overcrowding, room for children to do their homework and have some privacy.
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
All of those things are desirable. But they don't necessarily follow from greater equality; they follow from the poor being better off.
Some advocates of equality do so purely on the grounds of wanting the poor to be better off. This is understandable, but in my view economically wrong: taking money from rich people doesn't allow us to make poor people better off, it just makes us all poorer because the rich people go away.
There are many who advocate making the poor richer by allowing the rich to get rich (see: Peter Mandelson being intensely relaxed, etc). This strikes me as perfectly coherent - indeed, it needs some explaining why this should not be the default position - if we are improving the lot of the weakest in absolute terms - which successive UK governments have done - why should equality matter? If the poor are getting richer, why should it matter if the rich get much richer? Would you rather be at wealth 100 in a society where wealth ranged from 100 to 1000000 and mean wealth was 1000, or would you rather be at wealth 90 in a society where wealtg ranged from 50 to 150 and mean wealth was 100?
There are interesting answers to this - @kinabalu is quite eloquent on it, and I am to some extent persuaded that inequality itself is bad (rather than the more generally understood position that absolute poverty is bad), but it is not immediately obvious why it would be the case.
A thought experiment: under what circumstances would you be happy for the poorest to be poorer in exchange for greater equality? (Poor in this sense refers to all material circumstances: housing, security, health, environmental circumstances - not just income).
You're making the assumption that the only way to make society more equal is by teaching the rich to pay benefits to the poor. This is not the case.
I think it is the case that the ruck have got richer by making the poor worse off - high rents, leasehold, rip-off cartels, etc.
The Mandelsonian policy has been a complete failure. Look at where we are now.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Isn’t this Bullseye’s /Jim Bowen’s “Look at what you could have won” - as they reveal this week it was the once a month car prize rather than the speedboat
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Isn’t this Bullseye’s /Jim Bowen’s “Look at what you could have won” - as they reveal this week it was the once a month car prize rather than the speedboat
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Isn’t this Bullseye’s /Jim Bowen’s “Look at what you could have won” - as they reveal this week it was the once a month car prize rather than the speedboat
Take it back lads, they've blown it. Back to Tamworth with forty quid and a bendy bully
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
But they are buying up property and renting it back to us with exorbitant rents. They're investing in banks and funds that lend us money to buy the property that they don't want to own, which is effectively renting it to us, with us taking ownership of the maintenance. They invest in the big companies and utilities that we need to live, and snaffle up the shareholder benefits. The rich aren't living here as a favour to us. Sure, we want their taxes, but they need us just as much as you say we need them.
You can restrict their right to buy investment properties like we do but you also need people to invest in buying properties to rent otherwise there aren’t enough properties to rent and therefore more people are priced out of the rental market.
You need them to be investing in the banks and funds and utilities because your Fire Service Pension is also investing in these things and if there is no extra investment coming in from outside sources the growth of pension funds will not cover the outgoings.
If these wealthy people are not here do you honestly think that suddenly your average Jo is going to step in and start buying shares in utilise to replac that investment?
If it’s truly an area where the existing population is in direct competition then restrict it, property investment, no access to state funded education, no access to free healthcare/must be insured so even A&E covered. Otherwise take the money and the potential jobs.
All what you say is true, but my point is that the rich aren't living here as a charitable act. They stay rich and get richer because the average Joe needs the many pies that the rich have their fingers in. It's a symbiotic relationship, but it's getting ever more one sided. We shouldn't be chasing them away, but as long as you have a careworker on minimum wage doing the work that puts fuel in the care home owners Lambo, you're always going to have to make the case why they shouldn't pay more tax.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
Isn’t this Bullseye’s /Jim Bowen’s “Look at what you could have won” - as they reveal this week it was the once a month car prize rather than the speedboat
“You’ve got your assisted death. That’s safe.”
You've got the time it takes Keir Starmer to U turn to decide
The day after lifting sanctions on some Russian banks.
White House confirms it has halted weapons that Ukraine was scheduled to receive, including PAC3 Patriots, 155mm artillery rounds, GMLRS, Stinger, AIM-7, and Hellfire missiles... https://x.com/nickschifrin/status/1940158711772979533
Trump and the GOP are making it very clear who they see the 'enemy' as being.
It is not America's traditional geopolitical enemies, who actively work against the USA's best interests.
It is the 'enemy' within. The people who do not agree with them; who look or act differently. The poor. Those with no voice or power.
They do, although with different ideas of what they want - see the Trump/Musk split.
Likewise many Dems also view the enemies as internal - internal within their own party and internal within their country.
You cannot compare what the GOP are doing with the Dems. I'm sorry, you just cannot.
What you say about the Dems can be said about 'many' in the political parties in other countries, including here. What the GOP are doing is orders of magnitude greater.
The Dems casually allowed millions of illegal immigrants to pour in.
Many might view that as treasonable action or at least as a deliberate attempt to wage a socioeconomic war against internal opponents. (Snip)
And so did previous Rep administrations. The USA was, and is, built on immigration.
That's exactly the sort of unempathetic glibness that drives support to MAGA.
Telling people they've got to accept illegal immigration because their own ancestors migrated legally two centuries earlier is not going to get you support.
Instead it suggests you're not on the side of those 'little people' negatively affected by illegal immigration - so why should they worry about your concerns about Trump ? Perhaps the people who Trump regards as enemies might also be the enemies of the 'little people'.
And yes, previous GOP administrations did tolerate too much illegal immigration.
And that's what allowed Trump to run against the GOP establishment.
You are really, really keen to blame anyone other than MAGA, aren't you?
I suggest you are not on the side of decent, hard-working *legal* immigrants who are getting swept up in this mess - and that would be your attitude if similar shits came into power in this country.
I'm trying to explain where support for MAGA comes from and that unempathetic glibness from centrist dads is self-defeating.
Yet, sadly, you would rather scream waycisstttt than open your mind.
And what I would like to have is competent centrist government in both the USA and UK.
Unfortunately no party in either country is capable of providing that.
You can understand where MAGA support comes from while still criticising it. In fact most of the criticism from “centrist dads” goes towards MAGA politicians who shamelessly lurch from one position to a completely contradictory one depending on what Daddy Trump says. The polls suggest that Trump’s policies do not enjoy majority support in the US so it’s not really a silent majority thing.
I note that the “Big Beautiful Bill” delays the painful provisions until 2028 so that the Democrats get the blame if they win then. That’s good politics but pretty shameless. Nobody is interested in good governance.
It's a cesspit over there, it really is. Presided over by an individual who is far and away the most unsuitable ever to hold office in a western democracy let alone the biggest, wealthiest, most powerful one.
And look at the pathetic way he's covered in the mainstream media. The BBC headline yesterday, "Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' is passed". I mean, wtf is that? Why is the Beeb - the Beeb - calling it that? Why is our national broadcaster playing along with his stupid infantile language?
Some might feel this is trivial but it's not. It's all part of the dumbdown poison he's spreading throughout the body politic, conversation and debate, and life in general. Grrrrr.
Ironically, one thing useless Schumer did do was to change its name.
I just got the name struck off this bill with a move on the floor of the Senate.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
If you had greater equality then I would expect that the standard of the lowest quartile of housing in Britain would be a lot higher - less mould and damp, warmer, less overcrowding, room for children to do their homework and have some privacy.
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
All of those things are desirable. But they don't necessarily follow from greater equality; they follow from the poor being better off.
Some advocates of equality do so purely on the grounds of wanting the poor to be better off. This is understandable, but in my view economically wrong: taking money from rich people doesn't allow us to make poor people better off, it just makes us all poorer because the rich people go away.
There are many who advocate making the poor richer by allowing the rich to get rich (see: Peter Mandelson being intensely relaxed, etc). This strikes me as perfectly coherent - indeed, it needs some explaining why this should not be the default position - if we are improving the lot of the weakest in absolute terms - which successive UK governments have done - why should equality matter? If the poor are getting richer, why should it matter if the rich get much richer? Would you rather be at wealth 100 in a society where wealth ranged from 100 to 1000000 and mean wealth was 1000, or would you rather be at wealth 90 in a society where wealtg ranged from 50 to 150 and mean wealth was 100?
There are interesting answers to this - @kinabalu is quite eloquent on it, and I am to some extent persuaded that inequality itself is bad (rather than the more generally understood position that absolute poverty is bad), but it is not immediately obvious why it would be the case.
A thought experiment: under what circumstances would you be happy for the poorest to be poorer in exchange for greater equality? (Poor in this sense refers to all material circumstances: housing, security, health, environmental circumstances - not just income).
You're making the assumption that the only way to make society more equal is by teaching the rich to pay benefits to the poor. This is not the case.
I think it is the case that the ruck have got richer by making the poor worse off - high rents, leasehold, rip-off cartels, etc.
The Mandelsonian policy has been a complete failure. Look at where we are now.
But inequality in the UK is still worse than all of Scandinavia and the Netherlands, for instance, yet all of whom are doing better, economically speaking, than us.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
If you had greater equality then I would expect that the standard of the lowest quartile of housing in Britain would be a lot higher - less mould and damp, warmer, less overcrowding, room for children to do their homework and have some privacy.
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
All of those things are desirable. But they don't necessarily follow from greater equality; they follow from the poor being better off.
Some advocates of equality do so purely on the grounds of wanting the poor to be better off. This is understandable, but in my view economically wrong: taking money from rich people doesn't allow us to make poor people better off, it just makes us all poorer because the rich people go away.
There are many who advocate making the poor richer by allowing the rich to get rich (see: Peter Mandelson being intensely relaxed, etc). This strikes me as perfectly coherent - indeed, it needs some explaining why this should not be the default position - if we are improving the lot of the weakest in absolute terms - which successive UK governments have done - why should equality matter? If the poor are getting richer, why should it matter if the rich get much richer? Would you rather be at wealth 100 in a society where wealth ranged from 100 to 1000000 and mean wealth was 1000, or would you rather be at wealth 90 in a society where wealtg ranged from 50 to 150 and mean wealth was 100?
There are interesting answers to this - @kinabalu is quite eloquent on it, and I am to some extent persuaded that inequality itself is bad (rather than the more generally understood position that absolute poverty is bad), but it is not immediately obvious why it would be the case.
A thought experiment: under what circumstances would you be happy for the poorest to be poorer in exchange for greater equality? (Poor in this sense refers to all material circumstances: housing, security, health, environmental circumstances - not just income).
You're making the assumption that the only way to make society more equal is by teaching the rich to pay benefits to the poor. This is not the case.
I think it is the case that the ruck have got richer by making the poor worse off - high rents, leasehold, rip-off cartels, etc.
The Mandelsonian policy has been a complete failure. Look at where we are now.
From the past thread, I'm interested in what the actual tax impact of these people "fleeing London" will have. How much tax were they paying in the first place? Do they actually spend a significant proportion of their time in London?
My lazy assumption is the kind of person with that level of immediate international mobility has they income protected from HMRC; indeed, that the reason they live in London in the first place is because they can avoid tax here, no property taxes etc etc.
Think about it from the perspective of, for the sake of argument, 5,000 people who are multimillionaires (the type I’m dealing with who are worth mid tens of millions to billions) who leave London.
Let’s assume they have structured their taxes so well they aren’t paying any personal tax on income, cap gains. Your thought process is that they aren’t paying taxes so no loss.
These people buy, regularly, new expensive cars. Say just half of them pay £10k in VAT to underestimate, that’s £25m gone. Yes it’s small in terms of the tax take but how many nurses or teachers salaries is that?
They aren’t obviously just buying cars each year. They are buying ordinary goods and luxury goods. Think of how much VAT 5000 very wealthy people spend in the shops of London each year.
It’s not just the VAT, if you remove 5,000 customers from a focussed area of London there are certain shops that will close because they don’t have the custom to justify the rent, staff etc. so the UK loses, on top of the VAT, the corporate tax from those businesses and the income tax paid by the staff.
These 5000 people also don’t need their cleaner anymore, they don’t need the gardener, they don’t need their London tax planner or solicitor and many other service personnel.
I haven’t even bothered to go into property taxes lost as they buy and sell properties.
Again, in the big picture these aren’t huge amounts of money in the big scheme of things but it’s all money that pays for things the country needs/uses.
Whilst I started out from the basis that they have organised their finances so they don’t pay personal taxes, this just isn’t the case so you do lose those taxes but the worst thing isn’t just the taxes lost, it’s the fact that these people often control existing businesses and when they decide that the UK isn’t a wealth friendly environment and their senior employees are also finding it unfriendly, they move key parts of their business so the UK loses the jobs and the tax take.
These people are also often investors in new business or creators and so, as they are leaving London they are less likely to place new businesses in the UK so we lose potential new industries and the tax takes.
It’s not just rude oligarchs and obnoxious Middle Eastern princes, its business people who are a key part of the organism that is wealth creation and they are being removed for ideological not economic reasons.
What you're saying in effect is economic and political policy should be predicated around the interests of the 5000 (feeding them so to speak) rather than the other 69,995,000 people in the UK (give or take)?
I understand but if we reduce our economic and social policy simply to appeasing a very small number of very rich people, I can't help but feel we have a significant problem.
I’m not saying that at all.
There is absolutely no loss to greater UK society if the UK was to introduce a special tax rate that benefitted and attracted the world’s wealthy.
If the UK set a specialised rate of income tax and zero CGT and IHT for those with a certain level of wealth and minimum levels of tax paid under this system you would bring in people who would not be here otherwise, and therefore paying Zero tax, and they would be now paying tax - a low percentage but still large amounts in £ terms.
As I wrote, these people, who were not living here before but have now been attracted in would be spending, employing and frankly using next to nothing from the state - private medical and education for example.
So you get a net increase in tax take for zero real cost.
The only real argument against it is envy. They are not competing against you in the race for Knightsbridge and Mayfair houses, places at your local comprehensive, in the queue for NHS ops or making you wait longer for your Ferrari.
They are bringing in tax - and they might just bring in new businesses too which is even more important.
But they are buying up property and renting it back to us with exorbitant rents. They're investing in banks and funds that lend us money to buy the property that they don't want to own, which is effectively renting it to us, with us taking ownership of the maintenance. They invest in the big companies and utilities that we need to live, and snaffle up the shareholder benefits. The rich aren't living here as a favour to us. Sure, we want their taxes, but they need us just as much as you say we need them.
You can restrict their right to buy investment properties like we do but you also need people to invest in buying properties to rent otherwise there aren’t enough properties to rent and therefore more people are priced out of the rental market.
You need them to be investing in the banks and funds and utilities because your Fire Service Pension is also investing in these things and if there is no extra investment coming in from outside sources the growth of pension funds will not cover the outgoings.
If these wealthy people are not here do you honestly think that suddenly your average Jo is going to step in and start buying shares in utilise to replac that investment?
If it’s truly an area where the existing population is in direct competition then restrict it, property investment, no access to state funded education, no access to free healthcare/must be insured so even A&E covered. Otherwise take the money and the potential jobs.
All what you say is true, but my point is that the rich aren't living here as a charitable act. They stay rich and get richer because the average Joe needs the many pies that the rich have their fingers in. It's a symbiotic relationship, but it's getting ever more one sided. We shouldn't be chasing them away, but as long as you have a careworker on minimum wage doing the work that puts fuel in the care home owners Lambo, you're always going to have to make the case why they shouldn't pay more tax.
Germany has higher numbers of billionaires than the UK, yet also higher taxes. They stay for many reasons the Telegraph won't write about.
I am fairly relaxed about inequality: if someone is far richer than me, and contributes to the country, then I'm fine with that. If someone takes risks with their own money, and especially if they employ lots of people in this country, then that's great.
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Inequality makes all of our other political disputes that much more consequential.
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
What does equality look like when it comes to housing?
If you had greater equality then I would expect that the standard of the lowest quartile of housing in Britain would be a lot higher - less mould and damp, warmer, less overcrowding, room for children to do their homework and have some privacy.
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
All of those things are desirable. But they don't necessarily follow from greater equality; they follow from the poor being better off.
Some advocates of equality do so purely on the grounds of wanting the poor to be better off. This is understandable, but in my view economically wrong: taking money from rich people doesn't allow us to make poor people better off, it just makes us all poorer because the rich people go away.
There are many who advocate making the poor richer by allowing the rich to get rich (see: Peter Mandelson being intensely relaxed, etc). This strikes me as perfectly coherent - indeed, it needs some explaining why this should not be the default position - if we are improving the lot of the weakest in absolute terms - which successive UK governments have done - why should equality matter? If the poor are getting richer, why should it matter if the rich get much richer? Would you rather be at wealth 100 in a society where wealth ranged from 100 to 1000000 and mean wealth was 1000, or would you rather be at wealth 90 in a society where wealtg ranged from 50 to 150 and mean wealth was 100?
There are interesting answers to this - @kinabalu is quite eloquent on it, and I am to some extent persuaded that inequality itself is bad (rather than the more generally understood position that absolute poverty is bad), but it is not immediately obvious why it would be the case.
A thought experiment: under what circumstances would you be happy for the poorest to be poorer in exchange for greater equality? (Poor in this sense refers to all material circumstances: housing, security, health, environmental circumstances - not just income).
Your question 'Would you rathe be at wealth...' is an interesting one. The obvious answer is 100, but the wealth of others impacts substantially on what is - for most - the main expense: housing. Being at 0.1 of mean wealth probably means I get a shitty house. Being at 0.9 of mean wealth (even at lower absolute wealth) means I probably get a pretty average kind of house.
Now, all houses will be better if the country as a whole is richer - I'd rather be in bottom 10% today than a touch below average in 1930, for example, or bottom 10% in UK than a touch below average in South Sudan.
The ideal, of course, is being wealthier and more equal. Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Germany all manage to be more equal than us and richer. [1]
I could also mention The Spirit Level here, of course, but that may trigger some posters! (I'm acquainted with the authors - it has some issues, but the attempted takedowns are also pretty limited).
ETA: Notable that there isn't really any clear relationship between equality and GDP, which suggests both that equality doesn't itself drive growth, but also that it does nothing to hinder it. It looks like a choice we can make. E2TA: If you look across all countries, rather than my subset, you can maybe argue that there's a weak correlation of higher wealth and more equality, but the causality could be more welth enabling people to think about better things for the poorest.
I hope nobody is going to criticise Ben Stokes for bowling today.
They got lucky last time. Won't happen again.
I read last night India have never won a test match at Edgbaston.
Hardly worth them padding up. They are planning a tour of Bangladesh, that's more their level, maybe a triangular with the Mugabe wannabe cricketers England to beat the 903 world record score by tea on day 3
Comments
Attracting outside investment is important but investment in the fabric and business of this country is one thing but wealth that is only here on a prostituted basis and could be removed at a moments notice puts far too much political and economic power in the hands of a few in my view.
I'd say if anyone has a closed mind, it is you - which is why you fall back on the tired tropes of 'centrist dad' and 'waycisstttt'.
I think I understand where much of MAGA's support comes from. But here's the point: that does not mean I *agree* with many of their reasons/excuses for that support, or think their opponents should just roll over and cave in. You do little but blame the Dems for the actions of the Republicans and MAGA.
Voters voted for Brexit, Trump, Corbyn, Farage and Johnson precisely because they felt so called centrist government was not delivering for them
But that is not all of the 'wealthy'.
Who thought that was a good idea - to me it says more about the Democrats than him and it's not great.
'I don't think we'll ever be able to get our own place'.
I heard that constantly after 14 years of Tory failure on housing.
I don't want to hear it again.
My Labour government is delivering the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in decades.
(Though short of actually invading Ireland, there's no real way for us to influence their stance of selfish neutrality.)
First off, it's not envy at least not from my side. MY nagging concern is you are creating a class of citizen who would perhaps not see things the way I do (and I don't mean politically). It would be easy for them to think they are doing us a favour by being here and every infraction or incident (and we know they happen) would lead to a threat to leave and a climbdown from a compliant Government.
That's not how society should operate with one group of citizens thinking they have some form of leverage simply by being here. I'm also concerned bringing more people into private health care (laudable and valuable as that sounds) reduces the amount of specialist care available in the NHS given the same group of specialists and consultants operate in both sectors but I'm sure that could be resolved.
I'm also of the view we should be empowering our own citizens to create businesses rather than relying on external largesse. In many countries, if you want to reside, it's not just a question of having your own wealth but investing in the country itself and I'd like to see that as a prerequisite for admission.
What you're proposing was mentioned by those supporting our exit from the European Union in 2016 but you and I both know the overwhelming majority of wealthy incomers would bring their income to London and how much this new largesse would spread through the rest of the country is open to question.
They have some very talented national figures, but the current internal party leadership is not really fit for purpose.
But I thought it was all one woman's fault..🥴
And Ireland is not a member.
https://x.com/JayinKyiv/status/1940122313204318619
This time Ankara is considering Chinese technology.
https://x.com/AlexCKaufman/status/1940022713461920228
Is Bibi fighting an existential threat to Israel's existence or just one to his own position?
SMITH: You'd have to talk to the senators.
NEGUSE: I think it’s emblematic of the broken process… we will find different provisions that different senators for their own purposes—one of them was this deduction for the 160 people or so who will be able to claim in in Alaska so one of the senators from Alaska could feel comfortable voting for the bill.
MCGOVERN: Is that all it took? She’s a cheap date.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1940150258849522102
If you imagine a much more equal Britain, then the question of whether to pay for healthcare via general taxation or private insurance is not as important, because most people would pay broadly the same under the two systems.
With an unequal Britain a much larger number of people would not be able to afford to pay for a good quality of health insurance, and so the move away from general taxation funding would be a life or death issue for more people.
It's been a massive mistake for the Left to give up on increasing equality as an objective. Although it's equally a mistake to view achieving equality as a matter of taxation and welfare policies, rather than via more fundamental economic reforms.
They have a corrupt, corporate, incompetent establishment which has lost empathy to the 'little people'.
They've created a huge space for any radical outsider, from within or without the party, to move into.
This in not the first time either - look how after eight years of St Barack of Obama as President the Dem nomination was nearly won by geriatric socialist Bernie Sanders.
Trump might have been a blessing for the establishment Dems - it gave them an opponent to rally against and delay their decline.
The radicals which are replacing them are no better but they pretend to care.
WE HATE THE PEOPLE WHO HATE YOU is the underlying slogan of the radicals and there's some justification to it.
The news about the US challenges all of our assumptions about the mutual defence of democracies since WWII. It's evidence of Trump's loyalties and his duplicity - just a few days ago he was talking about maybe providing more supplies to Ukraine, but his actions are different.
The change in US policy is a major problem. The continuation of Irish neutrality is a minor annoyance by comparison.
The same is repeated across the country and especially in the SE.
The over reliance on a relatively few wealthy people to do capitalism is a recipe for disaster in my view.
There is terrible, terrible communication. Due to the comedies with staffing, you get an ever changing cast of medics. And the various systems of notes don’t seem to give them all the information they require to get up to speed.
This lack of communication is especially evident across functions. So post discharge care is completely disconnected from the medical teams in the hospitals.
The other thing this creates is a pull, rather than push system of patient care. The patients who speak up, or have pushy relatives get better care.
When you sum this up, the phrase “organisational negligence” comes to mind.
Just as an example, where I live (like many other places currently) we have specific arms length gov entities whose role is to attract in wealthy individuals.
One is aimed squarely at those who already have the wealth and want to protect it. They pay (in simple terms) low levels on income tax with a minimum in place and like everyone else here, no CGT or IHT. They are adding to the general tax take, they pay a big Stamp Duty on their property as there is a minimum value they have to spend on their home (they aren’t allowed investment property). These are nice to have not just for the additional tax take but they are generally people who have got involved in society and throw money towards charity, arts etc.
The other entity however is the one that damages the UK the most, and I think the UK needs to have a carve out of tax to ape.
This entity is purely focussed on bringing digital and tech business here. They chase UK people who have set up and own tech businesses and point out they can move their business here, employ themselves and in return they pay the low fixed rate income tax that everyone pays but they obviously avoid CGT and IHT. They have to employ a minimum amount of people here to retain their licence.
They aren’t getting a special tax rate but then the tax here is low - the key attraction is that they can move to a low tax jurisdiction without having sold up their businesses and avoid other restrictions and build their business without the prospect of CGT and IHT taking large chunks of their future wealth.
These are all businesses that are successful and innovative that are leaving or left the UK now, not just here but lots of places doing the same.
Just imagine if the UK could be saying to global entrepreneurs and tech people “if you move to the UK and move your business and guarantee numbers of employees then you get a special tax code that exempts you from IHT and CGT. It would be so attractive and bring business, enterprise, jobs and tax take that would likely never have come before. You could even go so far as to create zones where the businesses have to be located to spread it around.
As there was a group of us waiting for various bits and pieces to be done (removed, added, hacked off you don't ask) it was very convivial with a lot of light hearted banter. I asked the doctor where he'd put the hacksaw and the leeches - I'm sure he'd heard that a million times before - and he commented they stopped using them last month.
Well done, Sir Keir - another triumph.
Happy to report that that tradition seems less common at my daughters' schools than it did at mine.
Can't help thinking this is one way in which the startling high proportion of Asian children of various stripes at their respective schools has changed the culture positively.
Though the Saudi boy in my daughter's year 4 class who took it on himself to stand up behind his chair to answer a question and who frequently upbraided his classmates with 'the teacher said we must be quiet' clearly found English schools something of a culture shock.
➡️ REF UK 29% (+2)
🌹 LAB 24% (+1)
🌳 CON 19% (-1)
🔶 LIB DEM 12% (-2)
🌍 GREEN 9% (nc)
🟡 SNP 3% (nc)
And look at the pathetic way he's covered in the mainstream media. The BBC headline yesterday, "Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' is passed". I mean, wtf is that? Why is the Beeb - the Beeb - calling it that? Why is our national broadcaster playing along with his stupid infantile language?
Some might feel this is trivial but it's not. It's all part of the dumbdown poison he's spreading throughout the body politic, conversation and debate, and life in general. Grrrrr.
We are lucky to have them, and are mad to let them leave at the current rate, let alone actively celebrate this disaster.
And the fact that the Frogs and other opportunists who wish us ill are delightedly rolling out the red carpet for them should tell even the thickest socialist something.
But then of course if they were flexible or intelligent enough to grasp economic reality, they wouldn't be socialists in the first place.
(An illustration of some of the odd 'whataboutery' that passes for political analysis )
And this would follow from people having the means to improve their own housing, rather than being reliant on government grant schemes, etc.
From financing MAGA candidates to tolerating illegal immigration to becoming a gerontocracy they've disgraced themselves.
I don't see things in a manichaean 'my party good, their party bad' way.
Trump and his gang belong in jail, the GOP needs to be purged of MAGA - while understanding why MAGA became so alluring to its voters.
But the Dems need to understand where they've gone wrong before its too late and they become the leftist equivalent of MAGA.
CPS considering further criminal charges against Lucy Letby
Detectives have handed over evidence related to the death and collapse of other babies at hospitals where she worked
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/lucy-letby-charges-cps-n6n7g2z5c
The chief executive of miscarriage of justice body the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has resigned amid attempts to rebuild public confidence in the organisation.
Karen Kneller, who had held the position since 2013, has left her job at the CCRC, it was announced on Wednesday.
Last month former victims commissioner Dame Vera Baird became the interim chair of the CCRC, having been asked by the lord chancellor to carry out a review of the organisation.
The CCRC has been heavily criticised for its handling of the Andrew Malkinson case, one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jul/02/criminal-cases-review-commission-chief-resigns
The rich aren't living here as a favour to us.
Sure, we want their taxes but they need us just as much as you say we need them.
Because the drugs used are strong and the disease changes over time, regular blood tests are used to check status.
So a blood test is always followed by a GP appointment. Who states that she isn't qualified* to judge the results. And then you can book the consultant.
In a logical world, you’d book the blood test and the consultant, every 3 months, for foreseeable future.
*by the rules. The GP in question is actually quite active and read up on the condition and tests for own interest.
Separately I can safely say the demand for expensive Knightsbridge and similar property is soft as I’m hearing that all day every day when in my clients office
Put it another way. If you take away all the death and incidents attributed to Letby what are you left with? If you take all the deaths and incidents after Letby was locked up, what are you left with?
There doesn't seem to be consensus on the +/- impact of HNWI for countries, there is certainly evidence that they can negatively impact the standard of living for others.
Perhaps a comparison of poverty levels and "happiness" indices in countries with high and low income inequality could provide an indication.
You need them to be investing in the banks and funds and utilities because your Fire Service Pension is also investing in these things and if there is no extra investment coming in from outside sources the growth of pension funds will not cover the outgoings.
If these wealthy people are not here do you honestly think that suddenly your average Jo is going to step in and start buying shares in utilise to replac that investment?
If it’s truly an area where the existing population is in direct competition then restrict it, property investment, no access to state funded education, no access to free healthcare/must be insured so even A&E covered. Otherwise take the money and the potential jobs.
It's all very well having an economic policy which "favours" the mega-rich but that can't be an opportunity for exploitation in the name of profit. That means paying the local wage rates and additional benefits for their workers (let's spread the wealth around) so that they become not just good customers for HMRC but their employees become good customers as well.
The obvious question is why hasn't this been done? The obvious answer is it has but it hasn't perhaps provided the "trickle down" (sorry) of improvement some had hoped. If you are going to sell a policy like this to sceptics like me you have to convince me the benefits will be significant, tangible and will be for the benefit of the country and that as soon as another country offers something better said wealthy won't pack their bags and leave. When it becomes a race to the bottom (in terms of tax), I'm not sure that's a race in which we can participate.
Alex Wickham
@alexwickham
Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap
One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1940331679102706001
Some advocates of equality do so purely on the grounds of wanting the poor to be better off. This is understandable, but in my view economically wrong: taking money from rich people doesn't allow us to make poor people better off, it just makes us all poorer because the rich people go away.
There are many who advocate making the poor richer by allowing the rich to get rich (see: Peter Mandelson being intensely relaxed, etc). This strikes me as perfectly coherent - indeed, it needs some explaining why this should not be the default position - if we are improving the lot of the weakest in absolute terms - which successive UK governments have done - why should equality matter? If the poor are getting richer, why should it matter if the rich get much richer? Would you rather be at wealth 100 in a society where wealth ranged from 100 to 1000000 and mean wealth was 1000, or would you rather be at wealth 90 in a society where wealtg ranged from 50 to 150 and mean wealth was 100?
There are interesting answers to this - @kinabalu is quite eloquent on it, and I
am to some extent persuaded that
inequality itself is bad (rather than the more generally understood position that absolute poverty is bad), but it is not immediately obvious why it would be the case.
A thought experiment: under what circumstances would you be happy for the poorest to be poorer in exchange for greater equality? (Poor in this sense refers to all material circumstances: housing, security, health, environmental circumstances - not just income).
Who else is going to lose money to them when they yo-yo stock prices by shorting/ramping stocks?
They really are both crap and politics, and crap at communicating the issues and trade offs involved
I think it is the case that the ruck have got richer by making the poor worse off - high rents, leasehold, rip-off cartels, etc.
The Mandelsonian policy has been a complete failure. Look at where we are now.
4d chess from Labour
Worth noting that for children you often can skip this nonsense - you deal directly with the consultant for the relevant condition. Our daughter has a very minor long term cosmetic thing and even there we have a phone appointment with the consultant each year to stay on their books and have direct contact (each year: "Any change? No, not really. Ok, let's meet again in a year").
Indeed, I suspect that particular pendulum has swung too far, and the best workers might turn out to be the ones who ventured out of the library – success in sport, for instance, shows a strong work ethic (hours of practice) and the ability to work in a team. Secretary of the trainspotting club demands project management and administration, and so on.
They stay rich and get richer because the average Joe needs the many pies that the rich have their fingers in.
It's a symbiotic relationship, but it's getting ever more one sided.
We shouldn't be chasing them away, but as long as you have a careworker on minimum wage doing the work that puts fuel in the care home owners Lambo, you're always going to have to make the case why they shouldn't pay more tax.
I just got the name struck off this bill with a move on the floor of the Senate.
It is no longer named “One Big Beautiful Bill."
https://x.com/SenSchumer/status/1940080529413427340
But inequality in the UK is still worse than all of Scandinavia and the Netherlands, for instance, yet all of whom are doing better, economically speaking, than us.
It is variously misspelled as Siiwa, Silwa & Silva.
His actual surname is Sliwa.
Now, all houses will be better if the country as a whole is richer - I'd rather be in bottom 10% today than a touch below average in 1930, for example, or bottom 10% in UK than a touch below average in South Sudan.
The ideal, of course, is being wealthier and more equal. Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Germany all manage to be more equal than us and richer. [1]
I could also mention The Spirit Level here, of course, but that may trigger some posters! (I'm acquainted with the authors - it has some issues, but the attempted takedowns are also pretty limited).
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gini-coefficient-vs-gdp-per-capita-pip?country=AUT~BEL~CZE~DNK~FIN~FRA~DEU~GRC~HUN~IRL~ITA~NLD~NOR~POL~PRT~SVK~SVN~ESP~SWE~CHE~GBR
ETA: Notable that there isn't really any clear relationship between equality and GDP, which suggests both that equality doesn't itself drive growth, but also that it does nothing to hinder it. It looks like a choice we can make.
E2TA: If you look across all countries, rather than my subset, you can maybe argue that there's a weak correlation of higher wealth and more equality, but the causality could be more welth enabling people to think about better things for the poorest.
England to beat the 903 world record score by tea on day 3