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.
Obsessed with massive tasteless sausages and ugly, brutal architecture?
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.
Germany has an attitude to er… banking secrecy that makes Swiss banks look open.
In addition, their attitude and enforcement on tax avoidance is “Am I Bovered?”
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.
When I worked in the City - trading bonds not my previous proper trade of accountancy - I saw the need that many people had there in the Front Office to make sense of their chosen profession, over and above the "coining it, lol" sentiment.
This would typically take the form of tortuous reductive arguments about how the sector they were in paid a lot of tax, and so did they, and they were "risk takers" (if you didn't make good p/l you wouldn't get such a big bonus), bla bla etc etc, the desired mental destination being "I am a wealth creator, a net contributor to society, therefore I deserve these humungous financial rewards for doing what I do".
This is you on this thread imo. And I don't blame you one iota for it. Quite the opposite. It's only the people who need to feel they are doing something worthwhile who make the effort to construct a plausible supporting narrative. The ones who don't bother are worse because they don't care. And worst of all is someone (eg me) who sees the narrative for what is it - false - and yet carries on just for the buzz and the money.
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
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.
Germany has an attitude to er… banking secrecy that makes Swiss banks look open.
In addition, their attitude and enforcement on tax avoidance is “Am I Bovered?”
But that is far from the sole reason so many rich Germans, and other Europeans, stay in their home countries.
Those are often the social-infrastuctural "intangibles", that are so inconvenient to the post-Reaganite and Thatcherite settlement in the UK and US.
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
Given the average UK mother has only 1.57 children now, why should they be required to fund mothers on universal credit having 3 or more children from their taxes they can't afford to? If you are going to have increased child benefit do it for all mothers.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
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.
The top rate of income tax in Germany is the same as in the UK (and was lower in Germany when Brown was PM).
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.
Well that tends to be the assumption of 80% of those advocating for greater equality. And one of my points is that that does not work. (I assume 'teaching' is a typo for 'taxing').
Personally I would prefer to be in a society whose affluence was Scandi-distributed rather than USA-distributed. But you can't just magic yourself there. Scandinavia has a very different starting point to us.
There are certain things I would do to move towards it - but most of those cost money, and money must come from somewhere. At the very least, it takes a generation - investing in education, investing in the sorts of things which will enable a wide base of good quality jobs (infrastructure and energy, as well as regulatory and cultural changes) - all of which takes money. Spending money on more for the current generation of benefits: well, I can see why it's desirable but it's going to make us poorer and likely less equal in the long run because it stops us spending on the sorts of things which will take us towards the society we want.
On your final point: my understanding is that the bottom ten percentile are better off today in absolute terms than they were in 1997. So it hasn't been a failure in that regard.
(Also in the 'intensely relaxed' camp has been the Manchester Labour Party of the past 30-odd years, who heroically in the mid 80s shifted from the 'tax the rich to enable us to give more in benefits' camp to 'what poor Mancunians most need is better job opportunities - therefore lets do all we can to let Manchester grow economically to bring those jobs in' - it's been very successful and would that the UK Labour Party could follow that model.)
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate 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.
Your second paragraph is more apt, most city law firms, investment banks and consultancy firms and FTSE 100 company grad schemes will choose an Oxbridge or Russell Group grad with a 2.1 who did lots of team sport and extra curricular activities over an Oxbridge or Russell Group grad with a 1st who spent all their time in the library.
Getting an Oxbridge first only really puts you ahead if you want to be a commercial barrister or academic or be a Cabinet Minister (or at least it used to but beyond Starmer and Cooper and Kendall few in this Labour Cabinet have a first from a top university)
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.
The top rate of income tax in Germany is the same as in the UK (and was lower in Germany when Brown was PM).
Yes, but a wide range of other taxes are higher.
The OECD has the German tax take at around 39.5, and the UK one around 36.5.
There is a potentially serious issue here. If Letby is innocent (I don't know either way) then going after people who didn't stop her from murdering babies is going to be wrong.
There are some on PB who remain fully convinced of her guilt - the trial was lengthy and the jury convicted. There are others (myself included) who have concerns about the trial.
PB users, in the main, tend to be better at statistics than the general public. If you have 20 neo-natal units then there is a chance that one of them will have more deaths than the average, simply on randomness alone. And that's without considering the possibility of other factors such as sub-standard care overall, poorly trained staff, a unit struggling to cope.
I see now that prosecuters are looking at other charges. So these will cases where babies died when Letby was present that were not thought suspiciuous until now. This is dangerous - it wouldn't be the first time that a suspect has been identified and the evidence is then chosen to fit.
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.
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
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.
Indeed it was also much less common when we had more grammar schools
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.
An analysis of Unicorns suggests the UK is the best place to grow.
United Kingdom (45) France (28) Germany (28) Netherlands (7) Sweden (7)
Lightly taxing (corporate) Capital Gains (wealth creators) is preferrable to lightly taxing IHT (Wealth). Income taxs are moot as there can be a switch between income and capital gains as shown in the US.
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
Oh god, really. Well that's just the pits. I give up. Congrats to the Beeb for even putting inverted commas in then. Touch of subversion in that.
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
Given the average UK mother has only 1.57 children now, why should they be required to fund mothers on universal credit having 3 or more children from their taxes they can't afford to? If you are going to have increased child benefit do it for all mothers.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
I'm sorry to be a pedant, but the average UK mother has two children.
The average (mean) number of children born to a woman of child-bearing age is 1.57.
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.
The top rate of income tax in Germany is the same as in the UK (and was lower in Germany when Brown was PM).
Yes, but a wide range of other taxes are higher.
The OECD has the German tax take at around 39.5, and the UK one around 36.5.
It is the top rate of tax billionaires are most concerned about
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
Given the average UK mother has only 1.57 children now, why should they be required to fund mothers on universal credit having 3 or more children from their taxes they can't afford to? If you are going to have increased child benefit do it for all mothers.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
I'm sorry to be a pedant, but the average UK mother has two children.
The average (mean) number of children born to a woman of child-bearing age is 1.57.
Or, technically, over her child-bearing years, British women will bear an average of 1.57 children.
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
Given the average UK mother has only 1.57 children now, why should they be required to fund mothers on universal credit having 3 or more children from their taxes they can't afford to? If you are going to have increased child benefit do it for all mothers.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
I'm sorry to be a pedant, but the average UK mother has two children.
The average (mean) number of children born to a woman of child-bearing age is 1.57.
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
Given the average UK mother has only 1.57 children now, why should they be required to fund mothers on universal credit having 3 or more children from their taxes they can't afford to? If you are going to have increased child benefit do it for all mothers.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
I'm sorry to be a pedant, but the average UK mother has two children.
The average (mean) number of children born to a woman of child-bearing age is 1.57.
Last time I checked 1.57 was less than 2
You said "the average mother", so (a) you've already eliminated all the childless women, and (b) you've made the mother the key, so your language implies median rather than mean.
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
Oh god, really. Well that's just the pits. I give up. Congrats to the Beeb for even putting inverted commas in then. Touch of subversion in that.
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.
The top rate of income tax in Germany is the same as in the UK (and was lower in Germany when Brown was PM).
Yes, but a wide range of other taxes are higher.
The OECD has the German tax take at around 39.5, and the UK one around 36.5.
It is the top rate of tax billionaires are most concerned about
It depends on the billionaire, from what I've read.
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
The purpose of criminal convictions, in general include
- Closure for the victims and then family of victims - Public statement of what happened - Publicly assigning responsibility to the criminal - Recognition that a crime was committed and could possibly have been stopped.
In addition, here, sorting out deaths caused by ill intent from those caused by negligence has value.
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.
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.
An analysis of Unicorns suggests the UK is the best place to grow.
United Kingdom (45) France (28) Germany (28) Netherlands (7) Sweden (7)
Lightly taxing (corporate) Capital Gains (wealth creators) is preferrable to lightly taxing IHT (Wealth). Income taxs are moot as there can be a switch between income and capital gains as shown in the 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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
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
Oh god, really. Well that's just the pits. I give up. Congrats to the Beeb for even putting inverted commas in then. Touch of subversion in that.
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.
An analysis of Unicorns suggests the UK is the best place to grow.
United Kingdom (45) France (28) Germany (28) Netherlands (7) Sweden (7)
Lightly taxing (corporate) Capital Gains (wealth creators) is preferrable to lightly taxing IHT (Wealth). Income taxs are moot as there can be a switch between income and capital gains as shown in the US.
Some interesting but completely unverified chat on socials that UKIP might fold into Advance UK. I wonder if Habib is going to try and 'unite the (non reform) right' - a broader based Tommy Robinson/Katie Hopkins/Kippers etc type party? That sort of party might reach the levels of Griffin in 2009/10 - between the 6.2% euro 2009 and 1.8% GE 2010 (standing in half the seats so avg 3.5% ish)
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.
An analysis of Unicorns suggests the UK is the best place to grow.
United Kingdom (45) France (28) Germany (28) Netherlands (7) Sweden (7)
Lightly taxing (corporate) Capital Gains (wealth creators) is preferrable to lightly taxing IHT (Wealth). Income taxs are moot as there can be a switch between income and capital gains as shown in the US.
A great place to grow, and then for the wealth to be transferred abroad, however, too.
This, for instance, is the huge story of the UK's tech industry.
It’s a general issue in the U.K. economy since before WWI
Try showing this to a politician - most will gawp and then be amazed. They will never have considered the vast amount of money and effort that it takes to turn “invention” into “consumer product”
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
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.
When I worked in the City - trading bonds not my previous proper trade of accountancy - I saw the need that many people had there in the Front Office to make sense of their chosen profession, over and above the "coining it, lol" sentiment.
This would typically take the form of tortuous reductive arguments about how the sector they were in paid a lot of tax, and so did they, and they were "risk takers" (if you didn't make good p/l you wouldn't get such a big bonus), bla bla etc etc, the desired mental destination being "I am a wealth creator, a net contributor to society, therefore I deserve these humungous financial rewards for doing what I do".
This is you on this thread imo. And I don't blame you one iota for it. Quite the opposite. It's only the people who need to feel they are doing something worthwhile who make the effort to construct a plausible supporting narrative. The ones who don't bother are worse because they don't care. And worst of all is someone (eg me) who sees the narrative for what is it - false - and yet carries on just for the buzz and the money.
Not sure I agree with your analyses of me feeling the need to justify myself - I really don’t feel the need to do so - i had my career, now I’m in my “after career” where I consult on what I want to consult on and who I want to consult with but I don’t feel the need to justify my position or contribution.
What I was doing on this thread was to suggest that maybe people should be cynical about taxing the wealthy and forget their ideals or morals and get the money however necessary if it’s not competing with the general population.
I haven’t opined on whether these wealthy people are wealth creators in your terms. I simply think the UK should do anything necessary to attract these people. I really think too many people have a moral/ ideological block, tall poppy syndrome, the antithesis of congratulating people who do well when it’s not at our expense.
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?
I think you're clutching at (Letby truther) straws there. The investigation that led to these charges was about whether management had failed to stop Letby.
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
Do you mean high house prices around good schools rather than just taxing private education to oblivion?
An interesting set of local by-elections this week. Today we have a double Lab defence in North Tyneside. Tomorrow we have Con defences in Gedling, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Suffolk and Lib Dem defences in BANES and Powys. Finally we have a novelty - Ref defences in Durham and Nottinghamshire.
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.
When I worked in the City - trading bonds not my previous proper trade of accountancy - I saw the need that many people had there in the Front Office to make sense of their chosen profession, over and above the "coining it, lol" sentiment.
This would typically take the form of tortuous reductive arguments about how the sector they were in paid a lot of tax, and so did they, and they were "risk takers" (if you didn't make good p/l you wouldn't get such a big bonus), bla bla etc etc, the desired mental destination being "I am a wealth creator, a net contributor to society, therefore I deserve these humungous financial rewards for doing what I do".
This is you on this thread imo. And I don't blame you one iota for it. Quite the opposite. It's only the people who need to feel they are doing something worthwhile who make the effort to construct a plausible supporting narrative. The ones who don't bother are worse because they don't care. And worst of all is someone (eg me) who sees the narrative for what is it - false - and yet carries on just for the buzz and the money.
Not sure I agree with your analyses of me feeling the need to justify myself - I really don’t feel the need to do so - i had my career, now I’m in my “after career” where I consult on what I want to consult on and who I want to consult with but I don’t feel the need to justify my position or contribution.
What I was doing on this thread was to suggest that maybe people should be cynical about taxing the wealthy and forget their ideals or morals and get the money however necessary if it’s not competing with the general population.
I haven’t opined on whether these wealthy people are wealth creators in your terms. I simply think the UK should do anything necessary to attract these people. I really think too many people have a moral/ ideological block, tall poppy syndrome, the antithesis of congratulating people who do well when it’s not at our expense.
Not every rich person is worthy of congratulation (although that doesn’t mean none of them are). For example, a saudi prince who started investing with small inheritances of millions of dollars is not worthy of congratulation. Someone who built a business from nothing, sure, but realistically that’s not what we’re talking about here.
Also “do anything to attract these people” surely has limits. Should they pay no tax at all? Should they pay less tax than native business people? There are so many problems with this narrative - there has to be limits to how much we as a nation are prepared to prostitute ourselves for a bit of foreign coin.
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.
An analysis of Unicorns suggests the UK is the best place to grow.
United Kingdom (45) France (28) Germany (28) Netherlands (7) Sweden (7)
Lightly taxing (corporate) Capital Gains (wealth creators) is preferrable to lightly taxing IHT (Wealth). Income taxs are moot as there can be a switch between income and capital gains as shown in the US.
A great place to grow, and then for the wealth to be transferred abroad, however, too.
This, for instance, is the huge story of the UK's tech industry.
It’s a general issue in the U.K. economy since before WWI
Try showing this to a politician - most will gawp and then be amazed. They will never have considered the vast amount of money and effort that it takes to turn “invention” into “consumer product”
Alternatively, they have and hence come to the conclusion that there are easier ways to turn a profit.
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
Do you mean high house prices around good schools rather than just taxing private education to oblivion?
You see, it's completely unfair that some people will pay so their children can study instead of being punched in the face.
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?
I think you're clutching at (Letby truther) straws there. The investigation that led to these charges was about whether management had failed to stop Letby.
Experience with hospitals suggests that it is entirely possible they uncovered non-Letby negligence as a result of the investigation.
We don’t know at this point what the charges relate to.
We do know that more than one neo-natal unit has been found to be an utter shit show.
It’s quite possible to have a unit that is shit plus a serial killer. Indeed, it would making spotting the killer harder.
F1: btw, my extra prediction for Silverstone is Hamilton to beat Leclerc. One of the F1 channels I sometimes watch is F1Unchained, who had the same prediction, so we shall see if that comes off. Hamilton seems to be getting closer to Leclerc and Silverstone is very much a great track for the British driver.
No market on that yet but I might see what the odds are a bit later.
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?
I think you're clutching at (Letby truther) straws there. The investigation that led to these charges was about whether management had failed to stop Letby.
Experience with hospitals suggests that it is entirely possible they uncovered non-Letby negligence as a result of the investigation.
We don’t know at this point what the charges relate to.
We do know that more than one neo-natal unit has been found to be an utter shit show.
It’s quite possible to have a unit that is shit plus a serial killer. Indeed, it would making spotting the killer harder.
Its also, despite what some on here are wedded to, possible that Letby is totally innocent.
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
Do you mean high house prices around good schools rather than just taxing private education to oblivion?
The problem is that you end up moving the issue round.
Where I live, the latest fashion is
- send you kids to the Toby Young created Free School for Sixth Form (very good results) - Spend the school fees money on tutors in the 3/4 subjects - Claim state school privelage on university entry. - the school gets more awesome results for little effort.
This is based on the fact that by 16, study habits etc are pretty much set.
For comic value - a chap I know was using his garden office for joint tuition sessions. His daughter and a couple of her friends were doing overlapping A-levels. So they have a joint session with the (remote) tutor on the big screen. At what point do you have to register as a school?
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
Knock the Zimbabwe team all you like. The game has been kept alive there by a dedicated band of cricket lovers and they have a decent young side now coming through and this year they are getting the exposure they need.
They are the triumph of hope over adversity and good 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.
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
What are you thinking of? Assisted places for finishing schools in Gstaad?
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.
Perhaps the Germans are less openly hostile to 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.
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
So you back bringing back grammar schools then UK wide of course
An interesting set of local by-elections this week. Today we have a double Lab defence in North Tyneside. Tomorrow we have Con defences in Gedling, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Suffolk and Lib Dem defences in BANES and Powys. Finally we have a novelty - Ref defences in Durham and Nottinghamshire.
Im expecting 2x Reform wins tonight LDs will defend Bath easily, Powys I'm not sure, probable LD hold Cons will probably lose Gedling to Reform and Tower in Suffolk to the Greens but hold in Fulham Reform should hold Durham but Newark is interesting - its Jenrick central so we will see what his recent limelight does locally and the Tories did slightly better than Reform in Newark overall in May so its possibly the best chance Tories will have to take a seat off Reform for the foreseeable. Ill give it Con Gain for the narrative but I wouldn't put my shirt on 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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
it sounds like you long for the world of Harrison Bergeron
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Cookie's someone who is willing to make a reasoned argument to - and listen and respond sensibly to - people he disagrees with. There are several others on here, but it's refreshing. It's one of the reasons I value contributions from Cookie, Richards T and N, you, and quite a few others either to the left or right of me (I don't mention many other contributors I value with, I think, similar views to me).
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
The purpose of criminal convictions, in general include
- Closure for the victims and then family of victims - Public statement of what happened - Publicly assigning responsibility to the criminal - Recognition that a crime was committed and could possibly have been stopped.
In addition, here, sorting out deaths caused by ill intent from those caused by negligence has value.
Which has already been done given Letby has been convicted and got a whole life order (assuming the verdict was correct and truthers wrong).
The CPS are just wasting taxpayers money trying to bring more charges against her which could go on convicting criminals who are not already in jail for the rest of their lives
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
Good morning
Justice for victims is never a waste of money
What is a whole life term order already given if not justice?
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
Given the average UK mother has only 1.57 children now, why should they be required to fund mothers on universal credit having 3 or more children from their taxes they can't afford to? If you are going to have increased child benefit do it for all mothers.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
I'm sorry to be a pedant, but the average UK mother has two children.
The average (mean) number of children born to a woman of child-bearing age is 1.57.
No if they had 2 children they would have 2.0 children, rounding up from 1.57 to 2.0 does not actually mean they have 2
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
The purpose of criminal convictions, in general include
- Closure for the victims and then family of victims - Public statement of what happened - Publicly assigning responsibility to the criminal - Recognition that a crime was committed and could possibly have been stopped.
In addition, here, sorting out deaths caused by ill intent from those caused by negligence has value.
Which has already been done given Letby has been convicted and got a whole life order (assuming the verdict was correct and truthers wrong).
The CPS are just wasting taxpayers money trying to bring more charges against her which could go on convicting criminals who are not already in jail for the rest of their lives
What about the parents of other children who may have been murdered?
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
The purpose of criminal convictions, in general include
- Closure for the victims and then family of victims - Public statement of what happened - Publicly assigning responsibility to the criminal - Recognition that a crime was committed and could possibly have been stopped.
In addition, here, sorting out deaths caused by ill intent from those caused by negligence has value.
Which has already been done given Letby has been convicted and got a whole life order (assuming the verdict was correct and truthers wrong).
The CPS are just wasting taxpayers money trying to bring more charges against her which could go on convicting criminals who are not already in jail for the rest of their lives
What about the parents of other children who may have been murdered?
Justice isnt just locking up the guilty.
Fully agree- and even if it isn't be most cost-efficient thing to do, providing clear closure to grieving relatives is the sort of thing that civilised places do.
But maximising the function "bad guys locked up per taxpayer dollar" is one of those ghastly Americanisms that the British right are increasingly thirsty for.
...Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing...
...and very difficult to do.
Much as I hate chinless wonders being given a Ford Fiesta by their rich parents and then wrapping it around a tree, rich parents will always try to give an advantage to their spoilt offspring and I don't see a way of stopping them. The best way to handle it is redistributive taxation on the rich parents and assisted places for poor children. Stuff like imposing VAT on private school is just being mean.
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.
When I worked in the City - trading bonds not my previous proper trade of accountancy - I saw the need that many people had there in the Front Office to make sense of their chosen profession, over and above the "coining it, lol" sentiment.
This would typically take the form of tortuous reductive arguments about how the sector they were in paid a lot of tax, and so did they, and they were "risk takers" (if you didn't make good p/l you wouldn't get such a big bonus), bla bla etc etc, the desired mental destination being "I am a wealth creator, a net contributor to society, therefore I deserve these humungous financial rewards for doing what I do".
This is you on this thread imo. And I don't blame you one iota for it. Quite the opposite. It's only the people who need to feel they are doing something worthwhile who make the effort to construct a plausible supporting narrative. The ones who don't bother are worse because they don't care. And worst of all is someone (eg me) who sees the narrative for what is it - false - and yet carries on just for the buzz and the money.
Not sure I agree with your analyses of me feeling the need to justify myself - I really don’t feel the need to do so - i had my career, now I’m in my “after career” where I consult on what I want to consult on and who I want to consult with but I don’t feel the need to justify my position or contribution.
What I was doing on this thread was to suggest that maybe people should be cynical about taxing the wealthy and forget their ideals or morals and get the money however necessary if it’s not competing with the general population.
I haven’t opined on whether these wealthy people are wealth creators in your terms. I simply think the UK should do anything necessary to attract these people. I really think too many people have a moral/ ideological block, tall poppy syndrome, the antithesis of congratulating people who do well when it’s not at our expense.
Ok. I keep saying 'reductive' today, for some reason, so let me not fall into being it myself about somebody else's brain chemistry. It's just that often I find myself more interested in *why* someone is saying something rather than what they're saying. It's not, I recognise, a great habit to get into, esp on a discussion forum. It can irritate and thus be counterproductive - unless you're seeking to irritate which in this case I wasn't. It was a genuine thought occurring. That having spent a working life immersed in the world of HNWIs you would, along with the expertise, have an axe. But anyway.
What's clear is we have different notions of what constitutes a healthy economy and society. You draw a strong correlation between the taxes paid to HMRC by an individual and their contribution/desirability as a resident, and you extrapolate from there to "more the merrier, let's just get them in". You're doing like a P/L on them, aggregating and seeing the bottom line as a profit for the country. I just don't look at it this way. To me that approach is absurdly redu ... oh do stop it, K, work on your vocab ffs.
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?
I think you're clutching at (Letby truther) straws there. The investigation that led to these charges was about whether management had failed to stop Letby.
Experience with hospitals suggests that it is entirely possible they uncovered non-Letby negligence as a result of the investigation.
We don’t know at this point what the charges relate to.
We do know that more than one neo-natal unit has been found to be an utter shit show.
It’s quite possible to have a unit that is shit plus a serial killer. Indeed, it would making spotting the killer harder.
Its also, despite what some on here are wedded to, possible that Letby is totally innocent.
There are thousands of people in prison. You could say the same for each and every one of them, that it is possible they are innocent. We have a process.
Fifteen minutes into the second half of the year. It's not improved.
Its a glorious summers day here - blue skies, but crucially not filthy hot. The rugby is on my phone, the cricket on my PC and all is right with the world.
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
The purpose of criminal convictions, in general include
- Closure for the victims and then family of victims - Public statement of what happened - Publicly assigning responsibility to the criminal - Recognition that a crime was committed and could possibly have been stopped.
In addition, here, sorting out deaths caused by ill intent from those caused by negligence has value.
Which has already been done given Letby has been convicted and got a whole life order (assuming the verdict was correct and truthers wrong).
The CPS are just wasting taxpayers money trying to bring more charges against her which could go on convicting criminals who are not already in jail for the rest of their lives
What about the parents of other children who may have been murdered?
Justice isnt just locking up the guilty.
Assuming there is evidence good enough to go to a jury, it's a really tricky one. On balance I think further prosecutions would be right.
1) Justice matters anyway when it is murder - it is usual to pursue them even if no extra sentence will apply (eg Robert Black)
2) It would give LL's new team, and the prosecution, a chance to shine a light on the expert evidence on both sides with a decent chance of sorting the wider issue. If LL were found guilty of the new ones, then it probably closes the issue down for most people. If found not guilty, there will be stuff for the CCRC to work on about the previous trials
3) If I were the CPS/DPP/police my strategic worry would be that acquittals would open such a can of worms that not everyone will survive, and the earlier convictions will be seruiously in question.
Which last point is, I think, the best neutrals reason for going ahead. Further, if the new defence team is serious about what the have said they will think there is more or less zero chance of conviction, an outcome which can only help them.
Full disclosure: I don't personally think it is likely LL is innocent.
Ouch. Starmer on Reeves 'and we are grateful to her for it' like a speech at a leaving do She's sat there, bags under the eyes, hunched back looking incredibly uncomfortable. She's utterly fooked
What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say
Good morning
Justice for victims is never a waste of money
What is a whole life term order already given if not justice?
Have you even read the CPS considering further charges, and in these circumstances other victims may be involved and justice must be given to them
What’s the justification for this decision. It seems crazy. Entry level jobs are shrivelling and just adding more people, especially with AI coming, seems barmy to me.
Are we replacing the Boriswave with the Starmerwave.
‘ UK visa revamp allows lower-skilled office workers to come to Britain’
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.
... 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.
You're very sweet to me, Cookie, for someone who agrees with very little of my politics. I appreciate it
Interesting point above about inequality not just being an issue of tax and welfare.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yes. I've come to realise that the route to an egalitarian society is not purely - or even mainly - through fiscal redistribution. I am in favour of high tax and spend but there are so many issues that doesn't solve and it creates some issues of itself not all of which can be dismissed as special pleading by the 'haves'.
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
Do you mean high house prices around good schools rather than just taxing private education to oblivion?
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
Quite smart by the government that: we may have lost but we're not going to give you any satisfaction out of winning.
At least they get a little vengeful consolation from annoying the right people (which in McSweeneyland means the left of their own party). Shame about impoverished kids but..
Given the average UK mother has only 1.57 children now, why should they be required to fund mothers on universal credit having 3 or more children from their taxes they can't afford to? If you are going to have increased child benefit do it for all mothers.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
I'm sorry to be a pedant, but the average UK mother has two children.
The average (mean) number of children born to a woman of child-bearing age is 1.57.
No if they had 2 children they would have 2.0 children, rounding up from 1.57 to 2.0 does not actually mean they have 2
Can you point to any individual mother who has 1.57 children?
Front bench falling apart live on TV. Wow, they are so utterly screwed
“We are grateful to her for it” sounds like something a boss would say in a leaving presentation for an employee, but isn’t particularly sad to see them go.
Comments
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1940280279631110257
Credit where credit is due.
@realDonaldTrump has successfully resolved several serious conflicts around the world.
In addition, their attitude and enforcement on tax avoidance is “Am I Bovered?”
This would typically take the form of tortuous reductive arguments about how the sector they were in paid a lot of tax, and so did they, and they were "risk takers" (if you didn't make good p/l you wouldn't get such a big bonus), bla bla etc etc, the desired mental destination being "I am a wealth creator, a net contributor to society, therefore I deserve these humungous financial rewards for doing what I do".
This is you on this thread imo. And I don't blame you one iota for it. Quite the opposite. It's only the people who need to feel they are doing something worthwhile who make the effort to construct a plausible supporting narrative. The ones who don't bother are worse because they don't care. And worst of all is someone (eg me) who sees the narrative for what is it - false - and yet carries on just for the buzz and the money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Sliwa
Those are often the social-infrastuctural "intangibles", that are so inconvenient to the post-Reaganite and Thatcherite settlement in the UK and US.
A wealth tax however looks very likely in the autumn as this tax rising socialist government is still not tax rising and spending enough for its red flag flying backbenchers
Sliwa competed in multiple eating contests.
Personally I would prefer to be in a society whose affluence was Scandi-distributed rather than USA-distributed. But you can't just magic yourself there. Scandinavia has a very different starting point to us.
There are certain things I would do to move towards it - but most of those cost money, and money must come from somewhere. At the very least, it takes a generation - investing in education, investing in the sorts of things which will enable a wide base of good quality jobs (infrastructure and energy, as well as regulatory and cultural changes) - all of which takes money. Spending money on more for the current generation of benefits: well, I can see why it's desirable but it's going to make us poorer and likely less equal in the long run because it stops us spending on the sorts of things which will take us towards the society we want.
On your final point: my understanding is that the bottom ten percentile are better off today in absolute terms than they were in 1997. So it hasn't been a failure in that regard.
(Also in the 'intensely relaxed' camp has been the Manchester Labour Party of the past 30-odd years, who heroically in the mid 80s shifted from the 'tax the rich to enable us to give more in benefits' camp to 'what poor Mancunians most need is better job opportunities - therefore lets do all we can to let Manchester grow economically to bring those jobs in' - it's been very successful and would that the UK Labour Party could follow that model.)
Getting an Oxbridge first only really puts you ahead if you want to be a commercial barrister or academic or be a Cabinet Minister (or at least it used to but beyond Starmer and Cooper and Kendall few in this Labour Cabinet have a first from a top university)
The OECD has the German tax take at around 39.5, and the UK one around 36.5.
There are some on PB who remain fully convinced of her guilt - the trial was lengthy and the jury convicted.
There are others (myself included) who have concerns about the trial.
PB users, in the main, tend to be better at statistics than the general public. If you have 20 neo-natal units then there is a chance that one of them will have more deaths than the average, simply on randomness alone. And that's without considering the possibility of other factors such as sub-standard care overall, poorly trained staff, a unit struggling to cope.
I see now that prosecuters are looking at other charges. So these will cases where babies died when Letby was present that were not thought suspiciuous until now. This is dangerous - it wouldn't be the first time that a suspect has been identified and the evidence is then chosen to fit.
United Kingdom (45)
France (28)
Germany (28)
Netherlands (7)
Sweden (7)
Lightly taxing (corporate) Capital Gains (wealth creators) is preferrable to lightly taxing IHT (Wealth). Income taxs are moot as there can be a switch between income and capital gains as shown in the US.
https://sifted.eu/rankings/european-unicorn-startups
The average (mean) number of children born to a woman of child-bearing age is 1.57.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/07/01/congress/dems-delete-the-big-beautiful-bill-00435099
The usual BBC coverage of US politics - informed only by what GOP spokespeople tell them.
Justice for victims is never a waste of money
- Closure for the victims and then family of victims
- Public statement of what happened
- Publicly assigning responsibility to the criminal
- Recognition that a crime was committed and could possibly have been stopped.
In addition, here, sorting out deaths caused by ill intent from those caused by negligence has value.
This, for instance, is the huge story of the UK's tech industry.
a) Shareholders seem almost powerless to do anything about rampant corporate pay even when the company is being poorly managed
b) Decline of unions / employee bargaining power has led to low pay increases / real terms reductions for those lower down the tree
Yay us.
That sort of party might reach the levels of Griffin in 2009/10 - between the 6.2% euro 2009 and 1.8% GE 2010 (standing in half the seats so avg 3.5% ish)
Try showing this to a politician - most will gawp and then be amazed. They will never have considered the vast amount of money and effort that it takes to turn “invention” into “consumer product”
Radically reducing the role of parental wealth in children's educational opportunities would be what I'd focus on if I could pick only one thing.
What I was doing on this thread was to suggest that maybe people should be cynical about taxing the wealthy and forget their ideals or morals and get the money however necessary if it’s not competing with the general population.
I haven’t opined on whether these wealthy people are wealth creators in your terms. I simply think the UK should do anything necessary to attract these people. I really think too many people have a moral/ ideological block, tall poppy syndrome, the antithesis of congratulating people who do well when it’s not at our expense.
Surrey seem to have been too greedy
Also “do anything to attract these people” surely has limits. Should they pay no tax at all? Should they pay less tax than native business people? There are so many problems with this narrative - there has to be limits to how much we as a nation are prepared to prostitute ourselves for a bit of foreign coin.
We don’t know at this point what the charges relate to.
We do know that more than one neo-natal unit has been found to be an utter shit show.
It’s quite possible to have a unit that is shit plus a serial killer. Indeed, it would making spotting the killer harder.
No market on that yet but I might see what the odds are a bit later.
Podbean: https://undercutters.podbean.com/e/f1-2025-austrian-gp-review-and-british-gp-predictions-and-preview/
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f1-2025-austrian-gp-review-and-british-gp-predictions/id1786574257?i=1000715251700
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5lJnjwjUc2vm0uvUiq1ROk
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/bcfe213b-55fb-408a-a823-dc6693ee9f78/episodes/74f148a2-9d6a-4b69-be42-d9d14563c336/undercutters---f1-podcast-f1-2025-austrian-gp-review-and-british-gp-predictions-and-preview
Transcript: https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/07/f1-2025-austrian-gp-review-and-british.html
Where I live, the latest fashion is
- send you kids to the Toby Young created Free School for Sixth Form (very good results)
- Spend the school fees money on tutors in the 3/4 subjects
- Claim state school privelage on university entry.
- the school gets more awesome results for little effort.
This is based on the fact that by 16, study habits etc are pretty much set.
For comic value - a chap I know was using his garden office for joint tuition sessions. His daughter and a couple of her friends were doing overlapping A-levels. So they have a joint session with the (remote) tutor on the big screen. At what point do you have to register as a school?
They are the triumph of hope over adversity and good for them.
Mugabe is dead. It’s the crocodiles team now.
Always a good idea to cultivate good relationships with the parents of your children's friends.
LDs will defend Bath easily, Powys I'm not sure, probable LD hold
Cons will probably lose Gedling to Reform and Tower in Suffolk to the Greens but hold in Fulham
Reform should hold Durham but Newark is interesting - its Jenrick central so we will see what his recent limelight does locally and the Tories did slightly better than Reform in Newark overall in May so its possibly the best chance Tories will have to take a seat off Reform for the foreseeable. Ill give it Con Gain for the narrative but I wouldn't put my shirt on it
The CPS are just wasting taxpayers money trying to bring more charges against her which could go on convicting criminals who are not already in jail for the rest of their lives
He's got my vote.
Justice isnt just locking up the guilty.
But maximising the function "bad guys locked up per taxpayer dollar" is one of those ghastly Americanisms that the British right are increasingly thirsty for.
Much as I hate chinless wonders being given a Ford Fiesta by their rich parents and then wrapping it around a tree, rich parents will always try to give an advantage to their spoilt offspring and I don't see a way of stopping them. The best way to handle it is redistributive taxation on the rich parents and assisted places for poor children. Stuff like imposing VAT on private school is just being mean.
It's not improved.
What's clear is we have different notions of what constitutes a healthy economy and society. You draw a strong correlation between the taxes paid to HMRC by an individual and their contribution/desirability as a resident, and you extrapolate from there to "more the merrier, let's just get them in". You're doing like a P/L on them, aggregating and seeing the bottom line as a profit for the country. I just don't look at it this way. To me that approach is absurdly redu ... oh do stop it, K, work on your vocab ffs.
1) Justice matters anyway when it is murder - it is usual to pursue them even if no extra sentence will apply (eg Robert Black)
2) It would give LL's new team, and the prosecution, a chance to shine a light on the expert evidence on both sides with a decent chance of sorting the wider issue. If LL were found guilty of the new ones, then it probably closes the issue down for most people. If found not guilty, there will be stuff for the CCRC to work on about the previous trials
3) If I were the CPS/DPP/police my strategic worry would be that acquittals would open such a can of worms that not everyone will survive, and the earlier convictions will be seruiously in question.
Which last point is, I think, the best neutrals reason for going ahead. Further, if the new defence team is serious about what the have said they will think there is more or less zero chance of conviction, an outcome which can only help them.
Full disclosure: I don't personally think it is likely LL is innocent.
The Dalai Lama has released his rebirth plan.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/02/dalai-lama-says-there-will-be-search-for-his-successor-ending-years-of-speculation
TL:DR. It'll happen. It won't be in China.
She's sat there, bags under the eyes, hunched back looking incredibly uncomfortable. She's utterly fooked
This is excruciating stuff
Are we replacing the Boriswave with the Starmerwave.
‘ UK visa revamp allows lower-skilled office workers to come to Britain’
https://x.com/ft/status/1940135225389879788?s=61
Wow, they are so utterly screwed
‘A tear just rolled down the Chancellor’s cheek at #PMQs as the PM refuses to answer whether or not she’ll stay in her job.
Hayfever, or something else?’
https://x.com/paulbranditv/status/1940369217574101264?s=61
Perhaps a major reshuffle is now a matter of timetabling, and Reeves is aware that her end is imminent and inevitable?