Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
'DONALD Trump is reportedly furious at Ed Miliband being appointed as the UK’s Foreign Secretary under Andy Burnham’s new-look Cabinet.
Miliband, the former Leader of the Opposition, is feared to be a “point of friction” between the US and UK after several jibes and disagreements with Trump in recent years.'
Which could well be the result that secures the Senate for the Democrats given they already lead in most other swing seats
Fetterman is in the Senate until 2028, and is fairly likely to switch parties (he certainly has zero chance of the Democratic nomination next time around). They may end up needing Texas...
I think Fetterman stands as an Independent in ‘28, rather than a Repliblican. Same as Bernie Sanders, but from the other side of the party.
He’s still economically left of centre (for the US), but socially he’s a Clintonite, and laments his party being taken over by communists and antisemites (his words, not mine).
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't think it's about battling the blob. My sense is he wants every new initiative to indicate two things to ordinary people:
Andy gets it Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
Just because pensioners contributed something does not mean that they contributed enough.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't think it's about battling the blob.
My sense is he wants every new initiative to indicate two things to ordinary, not particularly political people:
Andy gets it Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
The challenge is going to come when Andy has to do something right, but unpopular. Or has to choose the better of two bad options.
Huzzah. We don't want the NHS wasting legal fees on treating patients.
I am afraid as a parent I am with Barnaby's mum. Three people died because of a dereliction of duty. The Health Secretary of the day, Streeting should be in the dock with the others who failed Calocane and his victims.
Same here. People need to be held accountable
The NHS shouldn’t get a free pass just because it’s a national religion
There are about 14 000 clinical negligence claims made against the NHS each year.
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't think it's about battling the blob. My sense is he wants every new initiative to indicate two things to ordinary people:
Andy gets it Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
He’s astute to do so, and so far the costs have been minor. Every little helps territory.
The other thing he needs to do is rectify Reeves’ biggest blunder, which was to depress the nation and talk us into stagnation. Get people and companies spending: that requires positive vibes.
At some point he’ll need to do some proper reforming policy though.
Huzzah. We don't want the NHS wasting legal fees on treating patients.
I am afraid as a parent I am with Barnaby's mum. Three people died because of a dereliction of duty. The Health Secretary of the day, Streeting should be in the dock with the others who failed Calocane and his victims.
Same here. People need to be held accountable
The NHS shouldn’t get a free pass just because it’s a national religion
There are about 14 000 clinical negligence claims made against the NHS each year.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
The cost is given as £850m. The ONS say there were 29 million households in 2025 (and increasing so will be higher than that in 2026/7, but we'll use the latest figure we have).
This gives an average saving of £29.31 per household.
The media should be all over deceptions like that, but they mostly disdain the ability to count.
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't think it's about battling the blob. My sense is he wants every new initiative to indicate two things to ordinary people:
Andy gets it Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
As a teacher of Buddhism I've never heard that term. Apparently it exists.
Huzzah. We don't want the NHS wasting legal fees on treating patients.
I am afraid as a parent I am with Barnaby's mum. Three people died because of a dereliction of duty. The Health Secretary of the day, Streeting should be in the dock with the others who failed Calocane and his victims.
Same here. People need to be held accountable
The NHS shouldn’t get a free pass just because it’s a national religion
There are about 14 000 clinical negligence claims made against the NHS each year.
Envy of the world. Keep banging those pans
NHS “Envy of the World”, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country apart from perhaps Canada.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
A third of commuters in Edinburgh, one of the few parts of the country that make a net fiscal contribution.
Perhaps if other cities and towns followed our example then the UK would be a richer country.
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't think it's about battling the blob.
My sense is he wants every new initiative to indicate two things to ordinary, not particularly political people:
Andy gets it Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
I sort of agree but as is fitting someone from a Blair Government I think he is making the same mistake. Blair started by having his finger on the pulse, summing up the public mood and reacting to public concerns.
The problem that created was two fold.
First it took away the focus on reform to managing the issue of the day and from actual policies for the future to mitigating now.
The second was that after about a year, todays solution to todays headline, contradicted the last solution to the last problem.
Policeman killer gets parole; Tighten parole. Prisons are overcrowded and bursting: Early release. Someone early released commits a crime. Stop early release.
Todays smart solution sets you up for tomorropws problem.
I think the danger we have is that Burnham is creating another Blair style Kitchen Cabinet, filled with people too focused on the headlines, most of whom think they are smarter than they actually are.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
Just because pensioners contributed something does not mean that they contributed enough.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
Is that true? It sounds like it would depend on what assumptions are made about how those NI contributions would have been invested if only they had been invested.
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't think it's about battling the blob.
My sense is he wants every new initiative to indicate two things to ordinary, not particularly political people:
Andy gets it Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
The challenge is going to come when Andy has to do something right, but unpopular. Or has to choose the better of two bad options.
After all, that's the essence of being in charge.
Yes. This is just about messaging to target voters, I think.
"I get it. I'm on your side."
If you can establish that with people open to voting Labour you'll get a hearing for more difficult stuff.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
A third of commuters in Edinburgh, one of the few parts of the country that make a net fiscal contribution.
Perhaps if other cities and towns followed our example then the UK would be a richer country.
Although with the Princes St closure at the mo, George St is a wall of busses. The festival will be fun
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
Not dishonest at all. An average saving of £45 over 12 months i.e. a year. Just because that period doesn't initially coincide with a financial year is beside the point.
I see a lot of clutching at straws from those itching to criticise Burnham come what may, with nothing that's yet been thrown at him showing any sign of cutting through.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
It can be done from October to March this year without reference to any budget - which is what has been announced.
Come November it can be included in the budget and made permanent.
The awkward bit is I don't think anyone is going to see a saving as the price cap seems to be increasing by 3-5% in October so the saving is going to be lost in an increase..
It also only seems to be on electricity. Most people heat their homes on gas. My electricity usage is fairly static - more lighting in winter, a little more cooking, less on refrigeration.
It doesn't cover gas because that would be enough £1bn extra and it's another little nudge to shift to a heat pump from gas.
Former Southern Water executives face criminal charges
Environment Agency claims four ex-employees including chief executive tampered with testing
Four former Southern Water employees including Matthew Wright, its former chief executive, face criminal charges over claims they tampered with testing.
The Environment Agency said it planned to prosecute them on the charge of conspiracy to defraud over claims that testing at a waste water treatment works was tampered with between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2017.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
Just because pensioners contributed something does not mean that they contributed enough.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
The Norwegians used their oil revenues to build up a sovereign wealth fund, half of the interest/dividends from which is earmarked to fund their state pension - which, many years down the line, it now does entirely (the other half is used to build massive bridges and tunnels to very remote places where only a handful of people actually need to go).
Back here in the UK, HY’s heartthrob Mrs T blew our North Sea oil revenues on tax cuts for the rich, intended to kickstart the whole economy but which instead kickstarted the ‘loadsamoney’ culture and our following the Americans down the path of directing more and more wealth towards the small greedy minority who already had plenty.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
Just because pensioners contributed something does not mean that they contributed enough.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
Is that true? It sounds like it would depend on what assumptions are made about how those NI contributions would have been invested if only they had been invested.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
I have lived in a number of large cities (currently in Perth Oz) where I have relied entirely on public transport including buses and have not bothered to buy a car. I have just rented a car when I wanted to for weekend getaways.
But I wouldnt do that back home in Wales - it is ok around Cardiff but very patchy elsewhere.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
Oh I know - but it's the 20 minute gap in the middle that is awkward. The trick with services is that if you run 5 services an hour people stop looking at the bus timetable as they know they won't have to wait long..
That was one of the fixes that made the London Overground so popular, if you don't need to look at a timetable you are far more likely to use the service.
Oh, yes, I agree - the problem is that in most of the country, running that frequency is hopelessly uneconomic. Though of course the best way of driving up patronage is to run that sort of frequency (on bus or rail). A bit of subsidy to run more services actually drives up farebox revenue quite a bit. The dream is that you can drive up farebox revenue to a point where it covers the cost of the additional services, but sadly the world rarely works out that nicely.
But in principle the more we can provide a turn up and go service the better the world will work.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
I find it interesting on these announcements that the money is coming from things like digital ID and overseas climate grants that “the blob” is likely to favour. Will be quite a change if Burnham decides to take on “the blob” but doubt he will frame it that way as many of them likely vote Labour.
I don't think it's about battling the blob.
My sense is he wants every new initiative to indicate two things to ordinary, not particularly political people:
Andy gets it Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
I sort of agree but as is fitting someone from a Blair Government I think he is making the same mistake. Blair started by having his finger on the pulse, summing up the public mood and reacting to public concerns.
The problem that created was two fold.
First it took away the focus on reform to managing the issue of the day and from actual policies for the future to mitigating now.
The second was that after about a year, todays solution to todays headline, contradicted the last solution to the last problem.
Policeman killer gets parole; Tighten parole. Prisons are overcrowded and bursting: Early release. Someone early released commits a crime. Stop early release.
Todays smart solution sets you up for tomorropws problem.
I think the danger we have is that Burnham is creating another Blair style Kitchen Cabinet, filled with people too focused on the headlines, most of whom think they are smarter than they actually are.
Peter.
He hasn't got long remember. And the absolute sine qua non requirement is to establish and sustain a clear poll lead for Labour. To put them in the frame to win a 2nd term. To save us from the populist right.
That's what he's been hired to do. Not to devolve power, not to be tougher on Israel, not to stand up to Trump, not to change any particular part of our fiscal regime or economic model.
Of course he may well do some or all of those (and other) things, I have my preferences like everybody else, but it's by the by. If he transforms Labour's polling he will have delivered.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
Just because pensioners contributed something does not mean that they contributed enough.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
Is that true? It sounds like it would depend on what assumptions are made about how those NI contributions would have been invested if only they had been invested.
If it wasn't, the Government wouldn't be skint.
That's because the government spent the money on lampposts and paperclips. If it had been invested instead, would it have been enough? And that must depend on any number of assumptions.
I have lived in a number of large cities (currently in Perth Oz) where I have relied entirely on public transport including buses and have not bothered to buy a car. I have just rented a car when I wanted to for weekend getaways.
But I wouldnt do that back home in Wales - it is ok around Cardiff but very patchy elsewhere.
Buses are free in Wales for the over sixties. I have my card but am yet to put it to use in anger. I will though.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
Yes, perversely, the greatest strength of the bus - its flexibility - is also its biggest weakness. If there are rails, you can make big lifetime decisions based on them - you can be reasonably confident the service will keep running because there aren't many other places the trains or trams can go. But who makes a lifetime investment decision based on something so ephemeral as a bus route? My view is that the answer to this is much greater levels of bus provision - if there is the physical infrastrucuture there - like quite major bus priority schemes - you can not only start to make buses more attractive, you can give the confidence that the bus is there for good.
Top marks everyone for the bus chat by the way. PB at its best.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
Anyone over 30 on a bus is a failure, as Thatcher famously didn't say
One of the most snobbish comments ever, whoever said it.
Oh I agree. I use buses, and I'm way over 30!
I’m guessing the “buses are for the little people” sentiment may be one of those unadjusted social media imports from the USA. Buses here are just one of the variety of transport options people take, these days using Google maps to work out which is quickest.
Over there using public transport is extremely class and race based, to the extent that in some cities it’s de facto apartheid.
I got the new tram from Houston airport to my hotel last year. It was there, Google maps showed it would be quick, so I used it. My US colleagues were horrified. They feared for my safety (doubtless in their next breath some of them would happily argue Europe is a crime ridden no go area).
I think the busses thing is two different worlds talking past each other.
I wouldn't ever contemplate using a bus except as an emergency option. Before we married, my wife spent a hour on one each day.
The difference is that she was commuting into central Bristol via a park and ride, I commute across rural Derbyshire.
If you don't want to go to or from a large metropolis, busses are pretty awful. There is a bus route that broadly does my commute (10mins walk at one end). I drive 23 miles each way, takes me about 30-35 minutes, the bus takes over an hour because it weaves between (and calls at) every tiny settlement on route.
Commuting into Bristol, the equation is different - there's nowhere to park, and the traffic is horrendous, thus my wife used to drive to 13 miles (35 mins) to the park and ride, then spend another 25-30 mins on a bus. Different world entirely from the northern experience, if you've not had the misfortune to see how people in the south live you've no comprehension of it.
Obviously, for distance traveled in convenience, if you could chose any commute, driving across Derbyshire wins hands down over the other options. The difference in Bristol is just that all options are bad, not just the bus.
The main observation I'd draw from this is that overpopulation (as found across most of the south, and the root cause of why it's awful) makes a country unpleasant to live in, and we should be trying to get the population to decay as fast as possible, rather than messing around cutting prices for miserable victims ton their commute from their sad little Barratt hen hutches to their battery farmed offices.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
But does that tell us more about you or about your local public transport options?
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
We should tally how much people have contributed, certainly to get the full state pension and full JSA only a certain level of contributions would enable that
This is easily the greatest performance of the James Bond theme by any orchestra. In 2020, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra was about to play the famous score but surprised the audience when the conductor is "shot dead" by a secret agent, squib fx 'n all, kicking off the epic performance without missing a beat. The best part is the cameras continuously cutting back to the conductor's motionless body 🔥 watch til the end https://x.com/Todd_Spence/status/2079675688311988429
Sadly, I can't watch it with sound as I'm not on Twitter but sounds amazing!
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Says the person with no experience in riding buses.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
The mystery appears to be how they know you’re at the stop, waiting?
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
We should tally how much people have contributed, certainly to get the full state pension and full JSA only a certain level of contributions would enable that
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
We should tally how much people have contributed, certainly to get the full state pension and full JSA only a certain level of contributions would enable that
But we don't, and there is no reason that can't be done with a merged Income Tax.
Whether we should merge tax rates, and whether we should have contributions, are two completely unrelated discussions.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
A third of commuters in Edinburgh, one of the few parts of the country that make a net fiscal contribution.
Perhaps if other cities and towns followed our example then the UK would be a richer country.
Which could well be the result that secures the Senate for the Democrats given they already lead in most other swing seats
Fetterman is in the Senate until 2028, and is fairly likely to switch parties (he certainly has zero chance of the Democratic nomination next time around). They may end up needing Texas...
I think Fetterman stands as an Independent in ‘28, rather than a Repliblican. Same as Bernie Sanders, but from the other side of the party.
He’s still economically left of centre (for the US), but socially he’s a Clintonite, and laments his party being taken over by communists and antisemites (his words, not mine).
That would screw the Democrats more comprehensively than his switching parties, so it's entirely possible he'll do it. Assuming he doesn't have another health event in the meantime.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
Remember round his way, they still have saloon bars where you pay a bit extra for your pint for just that purpose.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Says the person with no experience in riding buses.
Perhaps you should listen more to those who do.
I have sufficient experience in riding buses to know I don't like riding buses, like most people.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
If it’s Thursday I’ve missed an important meeting - thankfully it’s Wednesday
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
I don't live in London either. So that's something else you've got wrong.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
I don't love them because I drive, but my wife uses them to get to work on a daily basis and that is not an option with trains, which would require a taxi to the train station and then a taxi from it, and a train ticket. We worked it out, its cheaper just to get a taxi to work than to do that.
The fact you are so dismissive of how other people get to work does not say what you think it does. I agree with most of what you say on economics, but not this.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Says the person with no experience in riding buses.
Perhaps you should listen more to those who do.
I have sufficient experience in riding buses to know I don't like riding buses, like most people.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
Just because pensioners contributed something does not mean that they contributed enough.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
I agree, but the trouble is that everyone thinks they're entitled to their stuff.
Bar a sovereign debt crisis I doubt there's any serious political route to cutting spending now.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Once upon a time that was almost always true. I'm not convinced it is any more. I live on a tram line rather than a train line, but the 263 is a nicer experience getting into Manchester than the tram. And I don't think our buses are unusual. Much comfier seats. And from my occasional experience of Northern Rail, I'd still say the 263 is a nicer thing to sit on. I'd still choose the thing on rails for my journey because it's much faster - but on pleasantness it's not the slamdunk you think it is.
I don't get the timings for these two 'big' announcements
Both are welcome if somewhat underwhelming
The VAT cut is for usage in the 6 months from October. So some of those bills won't actually hit letterboxes until December for those on quarterly bills. So there will a distinct lack of extra cash in pockets for quite some time. And that may be wiped out by tge predicted October price cap rise.
The bus ticket scheme isn't going to start until January so again no real help for several months.
Why the delay? Are they expecting us to disregard the delayed starts and feel grateful now for something that won't have an affect for many, many weeks?
I know politics is spin. But these announcements are not a serious attempt to help people right now. As retail offers go, this is a pretty empty start.
Parliament decided to take several weeks off for a summmer holiday, and several more weeks off for political conferences in the autumn.
Then bring back MPs for an emergency Cost of Living session and do something now.
I get that these are relatively low cost gestures but delaying the start means people will be waiting to see any actual change.
Warm words butter no parsnips
Get on and do things.
A disappointing 48 hours?
I do find the presentation of the VAT cut to be a little dishonest. Giving an annual savings figure for a 6 month policy is just wrong.
I know that electricity use is higher during winter months and so that impacts on the figures. But far better to announce an average saving of say £30 over 6 months than a £45 annual saving.
If you are coming into office promising to be more honest and to do politics differently, then this isn't an ideal start.
The idea of removing VAT from electricity bills is something I would happily support. But just be honest about the details and don't hide behind spin.
Not dishonest at all. An average saving of £45 over 12 months i.e. a year. Just because that period doesn't initially coincide with a financial year is beside the point.
I see a lot of clutching at straws from those itching to criticise Burnham come what may, with nothing that's yet been thrown at him showing any sign of cutting through.
The policy, as expressed, is for a limited period of 6 months. Not 6 months with a hope of extending it. 6 months.
So give the cost savings on that basis.
I do support the idea of removing household utilities from the VAT system
And would have been happier to have waited for a full scheme to be put in place.
I understand the desire to start off with lots of eye catching announcements but this sort of short termism has not served us well in the past.
They are caught between the wish to be seen to be doing things as soon as they take office and the reported wish to have had longer to prepare before taking office.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
I don't love them because I drive, but my wife uses them to get to work on a daily basis and that is not an option with trains, which would require a taxi to the train station and then a taxi from it, and a train ticket. We worked it out, its cheaper just to get a taxi to work than to do that.
The fact you are so dismissive of how other people get to work does not say what you think it does. I agree with most of what you say on economics, but not this.
Yes, I know your wife uses them to get to work.
You've said it eighteen times already on this thread.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
I don't live in London either. So that's something else you've got wrong.
No, but you do (AFAIK, sorry if I'm wrong) live and work down South in commuting distance from London, where, trains are an option. You don't need to live there to have trains as an option.
Trains have considerably less riding flexibility as you need to go to the train station and can only go to another train station, whereas a bus can go from one bus stop to another bus stop which is far more flexible.
My town has a grand total 1 train station and 650 bus stops. Want to get a train to London or Manchester or Liverpool then the train can be useful. Want to get to work from one part of town to another? Piss all flexibility there.
Refusal should count as a black mark against future promotions.
As discussed yesterday, there's a very real chance that No10 North doesn't outlive Burnham, so why would you go? You could be swapping your family home in e.g. Hackney for easily a 6 figure loss (3 forced sales, 2 forced purchases and 2 lots of stamp duty) and a family home in e.g. West Ham in 3-4 years time. Plus it's likely your partner has a career which won't neatly synchronise with a relocation.
Thinking you can just relocate people show's a lack of understanding about real life in the 2020s, maybe it would have worked in the 1980s.
Indeed. See the disasterous relocation of the ONS:
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
If it’s Thursday I’ve missed an important meeting - thankfully it’s Wednesday
This is what happens when you're on holiday. You lose track of them.
The four Estrella Gallicia probably don't help either.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
We should tally how much people have contributed, certainly to get the full state pension and full JSA only a certain level of contributions would enable that
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
We should tally how much people have contributed, certainly to get the full state pension and full JSA only a certain level of contributions would enable that
But we don't, and there is no reason that can't be done with a merged Income Tax.
Whether we should merge tax rates, and whether we should have contributions, are two completely unrelated discussions.
It could be done but would require significantly higher administrative costs as I said, certainly than just doing it on a solely assessed NI contributions basis
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
I don't love them because I drive, but my wife uses them to get to work on a daily basis and that is not an option with trains, which would require a taxi to the train station and then a taxi from it, and a train ticket. We worked it out, its cheaper just to get a taxi to work than to do that.
The fact you are so dismissive of how other people get to work does not say what you think it does. I agree with most of what you say on economics, but not this.
Yes, I know your wife uses them to get to work.
You've said it eighteen times already on this thread.
Yet you keep saying it is for those "largely retired and don't work".
How would you propose she gets to work if not on a bus?
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
I don't love them because I drive, but my wife uses them to get to work on a daily basis and that is not an option with trains, which would require a taxi to the train station and then a taxi from it, and a train ticket. We worked it out, its cheaper just to get a taxi to work than to do that.
The fact you are so dismissive of how other people get to work does not say what you think it does. I agree with most of what you say on economics, but not this.
Yes, I know your wife uses them to get to work.
You've said it eighteen times already on this thread.
Yet you keep saying it is for those "largely retired and don't work".
How would you propose she gets to work if not on a bus?
This is getting really boring mate. No offence, but I'm going to get another beer and go back in the pool.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought..
Bus companies have to take some of the blame for this. A railway line is fixed and never changes, but bus routes do - sometimes quite often.
The local bus operator here just completely re-worked the service that runs through my village. New start and end points, new physical route and scheduling gone from 2 buses an hour to just one.
Also, road closures are a thing. The biggest town in this area is having the town centre almost completely rebuilt, which includes demolition of the roundabout used by around half of the local bus routes. All those routes are being diverted for at least a year.
The buses here are pretty crap, too. No electronic signs to say where the bus is going or how long to the next stop. The bus company app is the only way to get that information, which can be an obstacle for elderly people or those with sight issues.
On the occasional time I have tried to take one it's sometimes never turned up (zero information) and it's turned out it's cancelled or broken down. They also finish very early in the evening.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
I don't love them because I drive, but my wife uses them to get to work on a daily basis and that is not an option with trains, which would require a taxi to the train station and then a taxi from it, and a train ticket. We worked it out, its cheaper just to get a taxi to work than to do that.
The fact you are so dismissive of how other people get to work does not say what you think it does. I agree with most of what you say on economics, but not this.
Yes, I know your wife uses them to get to work.
You've said it eighteen times already on this thread.
Yet you keep saying it is for those "largely retired and don't work".
How would you propose she gets to work if not on a bus?
Bike, car, walk, whatever works? If its the bus then great.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
.
But trains only go where our forebears were wise enough to put down rails, and provided your Tory forebear Ernest Marples didn’t then sign off tearing them up.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
I don't live in London either. So that's something else you've got wrong.
No, but you do (AFAIK, sorry if I'm wrong) live and work down South in commuting distance from London, where, trains are an option. You don't need to live there to have trains as an option.
Trains have considerably less riding flexibility as you need to go to the train station and can only go to another train station, whereas a bus can go from one bus stop to another bus stop which is far more flexible.
My town has a grand total 1 train station and 650 bus stops. Want to get a train to London or Manchester or Liverpool then the train can be useful. Want to get to work from one part of town to another? Piss all flexibility there.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
We should tally how much people have contributed, certainly to get the full state pension and full JSA only a certain level of contributions would enable that
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
They could not claim the state pension in full without a sufficient rate of NI contributions, scrap NI credits and only those who have contributed can get it, everyone else has to get pension credits
People already can get NI Credits though.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
As I also said, scrap NI Credits. If you haven't contributed enough you shouldn't get JSA or the full state pension, just pension credits or UC.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
Why would there be any administration costs since we don't do that already, so there would be no change there. The system in place is a binary "contribute or not" based on income over the threshold, we don't tally how much people have contributed - and that threshold could easily be migrated to a combined tax.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
We should tally how much people have contributed, certainly to get the full state pension and full JSA only a certain level of contributions would enable that
But we don't, and there is no reason that can't be done with a merged Income Tax.
Whether we should merge tax rates, and whether we should have contributions, are two completely unrelated discussions.
It could be done but would require significantly higher administrative costs as I said, certainly than just doing it on a solely assessed NI contributions basis
No, it would require less administrative costs.
Whatever the NI income threshold is set at, just set it as an Income Tax income threshold. Job done.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Once upon a time that was almost always true. I'm not convinced it is any more. I live on a tram line rather than a train line, but the 263 is a nicer experience getting into Manchester than the tram. And I don't think our buses are unusual. Much comfier seats. And from my occasional experience of Northern Rail, I'd still say the 263 is a nicer thing to sit on. I'd still choose the thing on rails for my journey because it's much faster - but on pleasantness it's not the slamdunk you think it is.
I've never had a pleasant experience on a bus, except maybe the odd heritage day at a museum or an open top on the Isle of Wight.
I'm astonished that the buswanking extends to even the erstwhile "right-wing" posters on here too, who are almost certainly in receipt of a free bus pass, who love it just as much as the Lefties.
Just bizarre. Maybe we're just all fucked.
I think I will give up on politics, and possibly this country.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
I think I might emigrate.
Europe is nice. Oh wait you can only stay for 90 days after Brexit.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Hopefully your wife does not allow you anywhere near the household budget. Given majority of pensioners have little income it would bring in little and the rich ones would easily avoid it.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
.
But trains only go where our forebears were wise enough to put down rails, and provided your Tory forebear Ernest Marples didn’t then sign off tearing them up.
You know I've been a member of the Ventnor Rail Association since 1994, right?
I think in general there are far too many people sitting idle drawing cash benefits, be they ADHD'ers or Privileged Pensioners. We have lost our sense of duty and replaced it with a sense of entitlement.
They need to work or fund themselves. Perversely, that would improve their mental and physical health, and make them less depressed and angry, as well as improve the nation's financial health.
Agree with you on non pension benefits but are you seriously saying those who have worked all their lives and funded other people’s pensions should not get a state pension themselves?
They should.
They should just pay the same rate of tax on it as those working for a living, which includes NICs.
I am confused. You said there were too many pensioners drawing cash benefits. Now you seem to be saying they should be drawing cash benefits but they should be taxed at a higher rate. Is that right?
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
I think I might emigrate.
Europe is nice. Oh wait you can only stay for 90 days after Brexit.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Seriously, who flagged this?
Tragic. Must be a bus wanker.
You realise that the butt of the bus wanker joke was the person using the term?
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
.
But trains only go where our forebears were wise enough to put down rails, and provided your Tory forebear Ernest Marples didn’t then sign off tearing them up.
You know I've been a member of the Ventnor Rail Association since 1994, right?
I support trains, not buses.
It's not like football. You don't have to choose a mode to support and vilify all others.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
Casino yearns for a horse drawn omnibus with a first class compartment to keep the oiks out.
I think I might emigrate.
Europe is nice. Oh wait you can only stay for 90 days after Brexit.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Says the person with no experience in riding buses.
Perhaps you should listen more to those who do.
I have sufficient experience in riding buses to know I don't like riding buses, like most people.
Don't be a bus wanker.
I've linked to this before, on the importance of growing provincial cities and limits of buses as mass transit;
If you're serious about making an area richer, you need a city (lots of customers, lots of trade in goods and ideas, a choice of potential staff, a choice of potential employers). surrounded by a comfortably tubby commuter belt.
Buss can help, but the unreliability of their journey times is a problem. (Anecdote: when I started my current job, one of the superloop buses looked like the way to get there; a few weeks saw me shift to a slower, but more predictable, rail route.)
So: commuter rail and tram. But the UK has a terrible record there. Partly, I suspect, because proud towns don't want to be commuter suburbs. Is Makerfield, for example, up for that? But also because it means spending money now, largely to benefit other people's children.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
.
But trains only go where our forebears were wise enough to put down rails, and provided your Tory forebear Ernest Marples didn’t then sign off tearing them up.
You know I've been a member of the Ventnor Rail Association since 1994, right?
I support trains, not buses.
It's not like football. You don't have to choose a mode to support and vilify all others.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Seriously, who flagged this?
Tragic. Must be a bus wanker.
You realise that the butt of the bus wanker joke was the person using the term?
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
CR, your attitude is hurting mainly you here. Buses are very good at what they do. A few points:
- Firstly, more people use buses than any other form of public transport. - Secondly, if you're in a rural area, buses tend to be about as fast as driving if you can put in the modicum of effort to check a timetable in advance. I remember a stage night I went on: we were staying at a hotel in Warwick, and were going to the cricket at Stratford. I timed my arrival at the hotel to meet the bus, and got to Stratford more quickly and far more cheaply than those in the group for whom bus wasn't part of their mental landscape and insisted on using taxis. - If you live in an urban area most bus journeys are less annoying than having to park. - You can use the bus while drunk. - At the age of 51, sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus is still as thrilling as it was at the age of 7.
Seriously, check out the bus opportunities from wherever you live and use them - it will take you new places to be drunk. Taxis are for losers and people
No-one I know uses buses.
Everybody I know uses buses.
That's because the bus service where I live (Brighton) is superb, with buses to pretty much all parts of the city every few minutes, and judicious use of bus lanes that means they're quicker than cars on most journeys. They've also introduced express buses that have limited stops so are even faster. And, of course, because the service is so good the buses are very busy.
It's also a joy to use buses for longer journeys - for example, on the coastal route from Brighton to Eastbourne, which runs every 5-10 minutes, you get stunning views from the top deck that don't exist from a car.
That's it - my paean to buses is over.
I think this chat is representative of this site and its demographic.
I never ever use them. We live in the south-east and drive or commute to London. All other times we drive, as we have kids, but even if not I'd only ever use them in very particular conditions.
Exceptions? The IoW where the service is extremely good and reliable, and London.
I suspect it is location and the quality of the bus service where you live.
Big cities (Leeds, London. Manchester. Liverpool, Edinburgh. Glasgow) the bus services are frequent and get you exactly where you want to be in the same time as driving (or even less).
Round here to get to an office I used to work out would require 2 buses both only running 3 times an hour so you could have a 20 minute gap if you are unlucky with timing. Even without it a 15 minute car journey would take 40 minutes so you could be talking an hour.
Add on waiting in the rain and you can see why people drive...
Oh, sure - the bus can't do everything. There is no public transport model which gets everyone cheaply and regularly from everywhere to everywhere outside of very high density areas. But that's not to say it can't do anything. People who refuse to consider the bus - and many do - are cutting themselves off from a service which can be as efficient and pleasant as a train or a tram for no good reason.
It really is fucking not mate.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
Says the person with no experience in riding buses.
Perhaps you should listen more to those who do.
I have sufficient experience in riding buses to know I don't like riding buses, like most people.
Don't be a bus wanker.
I've linked to this before, on the importance of growing provincial cities and limits of buses as mass transit;
If you're serious about making an area richer, you need a city (lots of customers, lots of trade in goods and ideas, a choice of potential staff, a choice of potential employers). surrounded by a comfortably tubby commuter belt.
Buss can help, but the unreliability of their journey times is a problem. (Anecdote: when I started my current job, one of the superloop buses looked like the way to get there; a few weeks saw me shift to a slower, but more predictable, rail route.)
So: commuter rail and tram. But the UK has a terrible record there. Partly, I suspect, because proud towns don't want to be commuter suburbs. Is Makerfield, for example, up for that? But also because it means spending money now, largely to benefit other people's children.
Over to you, Prime Minister.
Extensions to commuter rail and tram are immensely popular.
It's a mystery to me why the Restoring Your Railway programme was cancelled by this administration, as well as a tragedy.
Which could well be the result that secures the Senate for the Democrats given they already lead in most other swing seats
Fetterman is in the Senate until 2028, and is fairly likely to switch parties (he certainly has zero chance of the Democratic nomination next time around). They may end up needing Texas...
The Texas Democratic candidate Talarico leads GOP candidate Paxton by less than 1% on average, Trump endorsing Paxton over GOP incumbent Cornyn may well cost the GOP the Senate in that case
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
.
But trains only go where our forebears were wise enough to put down rails, and provided your Tory forebear Ernest Marples didn’t then sign off tearing them up.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
.
But trains only go where our forebears were wise enough to put down rails, and provided your Tory forebear Ernest Marples didn’t then sign off tearing them up.
Burnham may not have much to play with until his first budget, but in the meantime he's using the limited options he's got extremely well.
Today's announcement on the £2 bus fare cap is well targeted. The prime beneficiaries are going to be those who are younger or on lower incomes (because car ownership is highly correlated with income) and who are in work or studying and rely on the bus for that. Strivers who need to make work pay. But it still applies across the board if you're below pensionable age, so no-one's really going to object. There are also indirect benefits - an upturn in bus usage could bring back some services previously lost or increase the frequency of services - even pensioners relying on buses will benefit if that happens. So it's well targeted in terms of rewarding those who need to be rewarded, and well targeted in terms of likely political impact.
Who actually uses peasant wagons?
I use “peasant wagons” and certainly am no peasant, as do plenty of my friends who aren’t peasants, some are a hundred million and more plus change from being peasants. We all use them if we are heading into town for drinks, if heading into the office or town where there is a good chance of it ending up involving drinks.
In our twenties we would likely drive in and leave cars overnight but you still had the issue of getting in to get your car the next day (lift from friend, taxi, bus) and also you had the problem of potentially being over the limit if picking up in the morning whereas we got over ourselves and realised how silly it was.
I can be on the bus, about forty mins journey and along the way people I know will get on, generally for the same reason. Some of these people are old business contacts or clients and I know they are worth crazy money but they don’t worry about the optics of taking an easy service to go and do what they want to do.
Will always get a taxi back at the end of the night as it’s easier when drinking and usually after the buses stop around midnight.
The same when I lived in Switzerland. I would travel in and home most days with the owner of the Commune’s Manor House, a hedgie, and other similar, Swiss, Brits, others, nobody felt any embarrassment about using a bus.
To caveat the above we have a great bus service, clean, good routes, cheap. Huge amounts of school buses so rarely plagued by gangs of school kids. No eating or drinking allowed so no grim smells.
I only use trains, taxis or walk.
Buses are slow, crap and full of undesirables.
Buses being full of anyone would make a change.
I wonder if this is another North/South divide though. Around here buses are the primary/sole means of public transport.
My wife has used them to get to work for a very long time and has never complained about undesirables. I never take them as I drive so can't comment.
For what it's worth, I did find the guy who reviewed every bus timetable in the country to see how far he could get in the UK using just buses (not coaches) in a single day pretty cool.
I'm fine with the nerdery and timetable analysis 👌
I enjoyed that too - it was about 5 years ago, I think? I remember he passed me on the way.
What I toko from the video was a) how quickly it is possible to get about by bus in much of the country, and b) how nice buses are nowadays - it is a far cry from the only GMPTE buses of the 80s with smoking and music on the move upstairs.
Buses #1 problem is that people do not find them legible in the same way that they do with trains. When the Beeching review closed so much rural rail in the 1960s, it made economic sense - the bus could do the job of the train just as well and more cheaply in those areas. But people - especially people from outside the area - do not treat a bus route the same as a train line. I remember going to a wedding near Cockermouth, and so many people getting a train to Penrith and then a taxi - because they wouldn't put in the tiny amount of effort to understand the bus route which pretty much replaces the old pre-beeching route. The bus would be just as quick as a train - it just isn't legible in the same way. A similar problem exists for more mundane services in local areas: where I live in suburban South Manchester, buses offer so much opportunity if you know where they go - but so many do not: it is obvious where a tram goes, but far less obvious where a bus goes without a bit of thought.
A further thought in favour of the bus: a good chunk of the population can't drive, either because they are too young, do not have a car, or never learned. The bus provides a great service for these people. My daughters' schoolfriends are largely beyond an attractive walking distance (many are 2-m miles away) - buses offer an excellent opportunity for teenagers to get about unaccompanied.
The google maps app is utterly brilliant at giving you the best public transport option - even a geek like me can't hold every bus route in Greater Manchester in my head, and certainly not the rest of the country.
Next time you get a train to an unfamiliar part of the country, I urge you to try the Google maps public transport layer to suggest ways of completing your journey which aren't taxi - you might be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
Trains will always beat buses mate, and Beeching was an arsehole.
Trains absolutely do not always beat buses.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
Trains are cleaner, nicer, more efficient, more serene, more sophisticated, and have more riding flexibility, as you can change carriage, use the toilet, walk up and down etc.
.
But trains only go where our forebears were wise enough to put down rails, and provided your Tory forebear Ernest Marples didn’t then sign off tearing them up.
Burnham has an aspiration to do something, he can't do anything til the Budget anyway.
They need to see what fiscal leeway they have, they would have had a fair dollop had it not been for Iran and Trump, the need about 10bn to do anyting meaningful to allowances but there could well be incremental things they could add in.
A set ladder over 3-4 years of x % to cover inflation plus 1% as an example.
A specific increase for those of pensionable age to link to State Pension standard amount so no one purely on State Pension pasy tax on it
My hunch would be to find a way of balancing the tax allowance for pensioners to the triple lock, so that you start to unlock the triple lock to a median point where you commit to ensuring it by inceasing personal allowances instead initially for pensioners with then an aim of increasing for all!
Putting aside the right wing ad hominem, I vote Labour in GE’s, I don’t see how this article is ‘right wing’ either.
why shouldn’t pensioners pay tax above the threshold ? It’s income after all. Those purely on the state oension do get other passported benefits.
I think Dan Neidle is right. Leave this and target NI, it’s a tax on employment. We need more employment and to make work pay.
We were canvassed by our MP and his aides at the weekend. One thing I told them is work doesn’t pay in this country.
The rational thing is for pensioners to pay tax on their income in the same way as everyone else. But as we saw with the WFA debacle, rationality goes out the window when it comes to pensioners.
I continue to blame Clive Dunn and St Winifred's School Choir.
I blame Reeves for simply not reversing Hunt’s uncosted employee NI cuts that removed all headroom
Which is bullshit.
Hunts freeze on threshold fully funded the Employee NI change.
It was a net tax rise.
If you are going to tax, better to do it through more honest and visible taxation rather than stealth and more stealth?
Indeed, which is why we should be abolishing NI and having a single rate of income tax that is paid by everyone the same, honestly and visibly.
Not taxing employment more than unearned incomes.
That is possible but you'd need to unravel NI from the pension system which will take at least some thought and legislation. On a wider point about differential taxation of earned and unearned income, the government is supposed to be looking at private equity, dividends and capital gains tax.
The need to unravel NI from the pensions system can be a long-term problem if you set employee NI to 1% in the short term, and change the income tax 20% rate to I think 28% renenue-neutral.
Any changes upwards of tax rates of capital gains will absolutely cost more than they raise. Arthur Laffer is waving from the door of the Treasury.
Any mad idea of taxing CG at income tax levels will drive hundreds of billions in investment vehicles offshore almost immediately. Dubai and Singapore are actively looking to recruit global PE funds.
You already get NIC "contributions" at 0% so no problem with setting a global 0% threshold rate for NICs, merge income tax, and still keep contributions based on income as it currently is.
Massive increase in income tax for pensioners though from 20% to 28%... It's why I would be doing it very slowly...
Merging income tax and NI is one of those 'easy fixes' that people who have only ever been on PAYE suggest.
It would be a massive increase in tax for pensioners and the self employed. Both groups who vote heavily....
That is precisely the point.
Pensioners and the self-employed should be liable for the same taxes as those on PAYE.
Everyone who earns the same amount should be taxed the same.
I would make it net tax revenue so cut the overall rate so those who are working for their income on PAYE get a tax cut, funded by taxing others the same as they would now be paying.
Yes but would it work politically as explained above large voting blocks would be against it.
There are large voting blocs against any change.
Taxes should be simple, low and evenly applied. Complicating it to appeal to voter blocs and dumping the burden on people in paid employment just harms everyone else and harms the economy by overtaxing employment.
But you have to get elected to effect the change.
They've already been elected.
With a manifesto promise that they are committed to not breaking
To not increase taxes on working families, yes.
What I propose would be a tax cut for them.
Its more in line with the manifesto than jacking up NI was.
Not quite what the manifesto actually says is” Labour will not increase taxes on working people. Which is why we will not increase National insurance the basic rate, higher or additional rates of income tax or VAT”. So they did specifically rule out increase in tax and NI.
Additionally in clarification they explained people had worked all there lives were included in their definition of working people.
Precisely.
Merge the two and there is no net increase, indeed it could be a combined cut and sold as such. All while not increasing, indeed reducing, the tax on working people.
Its more justifiable than the sophistry around the National Insurance increase.
No some working people according to the clarification would have their tax raised. It would be a breach of the manifesto
All working people did when NICs were increased, hence the sophistry around "ah but we didn't mean Employers NICs". It was still a very clear and unambiguous rise in tax.
A merger would simplify rates and not be a net increase. There would be winners and losers but there always are.
No a merger would just lead to welfare dependency from cradle to grave on tax funded welfare, with not even any attempt to have a contributory element for that welfare whether for unemployment benefit or the state pension
No it would not.
We already have welfare dependency. A merger would reduce it by lowering the proportion of taxes levied on those who work and would not change benefits one iota. 🤦♂️
You seem to have this delusion that a merger would increase benefits. It will not.
Yes it would. Most OECD nations fund their unemployment benefits via contributions to unemployment insurance and receipt of the full state pension also requiring sufficient social insurance contributions too.
Income tax would rise of course anyway as it would have NI merged into it and those on unemployment benefit or the state pension would not ever need to contribute a penny to claim them in full
They already don't need to contribute a penny to claim in full and you can keep the contribution link (indeed strengthen it) to the new combined rate.
All that would change is that currently those on taxable benefits don't pay NICs on their benefit income while those who work for their income do.
Why do you think those working for their income should be taxed more than those on benefits?
You can scrap NI credits and then ensure the full contribution link is kept for the state pension and JSA. Pensioners of course contributed to NIC throughout their working life anyway
You could keep the contribution link to a combined income tax rate, no need to abolish the contribution thresholds.
Pensioners of course never paid toward their own pensions, which is why we not only have no savings to pay for them but we are paying interest on debt instead.
Why should those on benefits be taxed less than those working for the same income?
Just because pensioners contributed something does not mean that they contributed enough.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
Can you prove that dumb theory. If I had invested my NI payments for 50 years I would get significantly more guaranteed than state pension
Comments
You should see the Daily Mail.
He’s still economically left of centre (for the US), but socially he’s a Clintonite, and laments his party being taken over by communists and antisemites (his words, not mine).
Andy gets it
Andy is on our side
This is the feeltone* he's seeking to embed in these early days of his government.
* a buddhist term not catholic but I think it fits.
What's clear now is that the contributions that current pensioners made over the past 60+ or so years has turned out to be woefully short of what is needed to fund the benefits and services to which they now consider themselves entitled. Yet they just don't seem to get that hard truth. And it shouldn't be down just to the next two or three generations to make up the shortfall alone.
What is wrong with a package that combines abolishing NI Credits, merging Income Tax and NICs and migrating NI contributions to be Income Tax contributions?
You keep the contributory nature that you want but eliminate the distortion of taxing working people more. What is wrong with that?
After all, that's the essence of being in charge.
The same kind of folk moan about having to ferry their kids around.
The other thing he needs to do is rectify Reeves’ biggest blunder, which was to depress the nation and talk us into stagnation. Get people and companies spending: that requires positive vibes.
At some point he’ll need to do some proper reforming policy though.
This gives an average saving of £29.31 per household.
The media should be all over deceptions like that, but they mostly disdain the ability to count.
Perhaps if other cities and towns followed our example then the UK would be a richer country.
Blair started by having his finger on the pulse, summing up the public mood and reacting to public concerns.
The problem that created was two fold.
First it took away the focus on reform to managing the issue of the day and from actual policies for the future to mitigating now.
The second was that after about a year, todays solution to todays headline, contradicted the last solution to the last problem.
Policeman killer gets parole; Tighten parole. Prisons are overcrowded and bursting: Early release. Someone early released commits a crime. Stop early release.
Todays smart solution sets you up for tomorropws problem.
I think the danger we have is that Burnham is creating another Blair style Kitchen Cabinet, filled with people too focused on the headlines, most of whom think they are smarter than they actually are.
Peter.
"I get it. I'm on your side."
If you can establish that with people open to voting Labour you'll get a hearing for more difficult stuff.
SKS never managed it.
I agree with you on that but identifying what had been contributed for state pensions and JSA and what was to fund other areas of government spending from income tax would be administratively costly
The festival will be fun
I see a lot of clutching at straws from those itching to criticise Burnham come what may, with nothing that's yet been thrown at him showing any sign of cutting through.
Environment Agency claims four ex-employees including chief executive tampered with testing
Four former Southern Water employees including Matthew Wright, its former chief executive, face criminal charges over claims they tampered with testing.
The Environment Agency said it planned to prosecute them on the charge of conspiracy to defraud over claims that testing at a waste water treatment works was tampered with between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2017.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/07/22/southern-water-executives-face-criminal-charges/
Back here in the UK, HY’s heartthrob Mrs T blew our North Sea oil revenues on tax cuts for the rich, intended to kickstart the whole economy but which instead kickstarted the ‘loadsamoney’ culture and our following the Americans down the path of directing more and more wealth towards the small greedy minority who already had plenty.
But I wouldnt do that back home in Wales - it is ok around Cardiff but very patchy elsewhere.
Though of course the best way of driving up patronage is to run that sort of frequency (on bus or rail). A bit of subsidy to run more services actually drives up farebox revenue quite a bit. The dream is that you can drive up farebox revenue to a point where it covers the cost of the additional services, but sadly the world rarely works out that nicely.
But in principle the more we can provide a turn up and go service the better the world will work.
Merge it all and there would be just the one tax - and keep contribution requirements in place, not proposing abolishing those.
That's what he's been hired to do. Not to devolve power, not to be tougher on Israel, not to stand up to Trump, not to change any particular part of our fiscal regime or economic model.
Of course he may well do some or all of those (and other) things, I have my preferences like everybody else, but it's by the by. If he transforms Labour's polling he will have delivered.
Top marks everyone for the bus chat by the way. PB at its best.
This site loves them because it's the middle of Thursday in the working week and the people posting here are largely retired and don't work (I only am because I'm on holiday by the pool and bored) and it's not representative.
For those for whom it's not free, and time matters, or who have luggage, the bus isn't a serious option.
(Or under 30, for that matter)
I wouldn't ever contemplate using a bus except as an emergency option. Before we married, my wife spent a hour on one each day.
The difference is that she was commuting into central Bristol via a park and ride, I commute across rural Derbyshire.
If you don't want to go to or from a large metropolis, busses are pretty awful. There is a bus route that broadly does my commute (10mins walk at one end). I drive 23 miles each way, takes me about 30-35 minutes, the bus takes over an hour because it weaves between (and calls at) every tiny settlement on route.
Commuting into Bristol, the equation is different - there's nowhere to park, and the traffic is horrendous, thus my wife used to drive to 13 miles (35 mins) to the park and ride, then spend another 25-30 mins on a bus. Different world entirely from the northern experience, if you've not had the misfortune to see how people in the south live you've no comprehension of it.
Obviously, for distance traveled in convenience, if you could chose any commute, driving across Derbyshire wins hands down over the other options. The difference in Bristol is just that all options are bad, not just the bus.
The main observation I'd draw from this is that overpopulation (as found across most of the south, and the root cause of why it's awful) makes a country unpleasant to live in, and we should be trying to get the population to decay as fast as possible, rather than messing around cutting prices for miserable victims ton their commute from their sad little Barratt hen hutches to their battery farmed offices.
Get back to work.
My wife gets a bus to work. She gets a bus from near our house, then gets off the bus near her work, one town over.
If she wanted to get a train she would need to get a taxi to the the train station (or a bus to the train station), then a train, then a taxi from the train station to work (or a bus).
There is no advantage in doing so.
Trains may be great somewhere like London, but try living in the rest of the country. Buses can operate without tracks on existing roads which mean they can go to far more places, which is why far more people use buses than trains outside areas like London.
A train is far far more pleasant than a fucking bus.
The Copenhagen metro is fully automated (being modern) so you can sit and pretend to drive a train no-one is actually driving.
Perhaps you should listen more to those who do.
Whether we should merge tax rates, and whether we should have contributions, are two completely unrelated discussions.
Assuming he doesn't have another health event in the meantime.
Don't be a bus wanker.
Tragic. Must be a bus wanker.
I don't live in London either. So that's something else you've got wrong.
The fact you are so dismissive of how other people get to work does not say what you think it does. I agree with most of what you say on economics, but not this.
Bar a sovereign debt crisis I doubt there's any serious political route to cutting spending now.
So give the cost savings on that basis.
I do support the idea of removing household utilities from the VAT system
And would have been happier to have waited for a full scheme to be put in place.
I understand the desire to start off with lots of eye catching announcements but this sort of short termism has not served us well in the past.
They are caught between the wish to be seen to be doing things as soon as they take office and the reported wish to have had longer to prepare before taking office.
You've said it eighteen times already on this thread.
Trains have considerably less riding flexibility as you need to go to the train station and can only go to another train station, whereas a bus can go from one bus stop to another bus stop which is far more flexible.
My town has a grand total 1 train station and 650 bus stops. Want to get a train to London or Manchester or Liverpool then the train can be useful. Want to get to work from one part of town to another? Piss all flexibility there.
The four Estrella Gallicia probably don't help either.
How would you propose she gets to work if not on a bus?
Made me sad that I don't own a 2 million pound house on Bathwick Hill...
I wouldn't be seen dead on a bus.
Thatcher was right.
Whatever the NI income threshold is set at, just set it as an Income Tax income threshold. Job done.
I'm astonished that the buswanking extends to even the erstwhile "right-wing" posters on here too, who are almost certainly in receipt of a free bus pass, who love it just as much as the Lefties.
Just bizarre. Maybe we're just all fucked.
I think I will give up on politics, and possibly this country.
I support trains, not buses.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20260721/i-was-only-9-n-korean-defector-recalls-childhood-memory-of-public-execution
Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea...
Shame.
https://tomforth.co.uk/birminghamisasmallcity/
If you're serious about making an area richer, you need a city (lots of customers, lots of trade in goods and ideas, a choice of potential staff, a choice of potential employers). surrounded by a comfortably tubby commuter belt.
Buss can help, but the unreliability of their journey times is a problem. (Anecdote: when I started my current job, one of the superloop buses looked like the way to get there; a few weeks saw me shift to a slower, but more predictable, rail route.)
So: commuter rail and tram. But the UK has a terrible record there. Partly, I suspect, because proud towns don't want to be commuter suburbs. Is Makerfield, for example, up for that? But also because it means spending money now, largely to benefit other people's children.
Over to you, Prime Minister.
It's a mystery to me why the Restoring Your Railway programme was cancelled by this administration, as well as a tragedy.
Sorry. Me and my crazy talk.
Suitable for both cars and buses.