National insurance cut

tonys said:
I've said this before, I was told by my history teacher that if you looked at the system of government in this country you have Tories saying one thing and most of the time Labour is saying the opposite.
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According to many people that's not the case today with Labour. Some say they offer nothing different and are Tory lite. Others like me who understand most of the UK are centrists don't think it is the case and it's not just policy differences that matters, its competence.


tonys said:
So when they get in power they go well we don't want those policies that aren't ours so spend years trying to get rid of them and put theirs in place. Come the election they have a population who are fed up with them not doing what was promised so they vote the other party in and so the cycle goes on. No party is working to get the country better they are only looking out for their own self interest.
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To some degree that's true. That's one of our democracies flaws and not helped by a two party system. I have some family members who were senior civil servants with regular contact with Ministers and front Benchers and I've met a few MPs. They aren't all in it for their own self interest and it's a depressing sign of the times (made worse by the last 14 years) that so many people think that. They aren't, despite appearances. The HoC doesn't help, when many people's only exposure to politics is a small clip of the nightly news of a chamber looking and sounding like a posh boys club. It needs to change in physical layout / format and rules.

So feel free to vote for none of the above, if that's how you feel. But there is 0% chance anything will change if everyone thought that way. At least there is a chance if you do.

Some things need to change I agree.. but are we suprised many people feel that way with the state of the country.. nope. Has it always been this way, actually I don't think it has. I think there have been some periods of good government and it felt like we were living in a country that was well enough led and things.. worked (for most people).
 
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redeye said:
According to many people that's not the case today with Labour. Some say they offer nothing different and are Tory lite. Others like me who understand most of the UK are centrists don't think it is the case and it's not just policy differences that matters, its competence.




To some degree that's true. That's one of our democracies flaws and not helped by a two party system. I have some family members who were senior civil servants with regular contact with Ministers and front Benchers and I've met a few MPs. They aren't all in it for their own self interest and it's a depressing sign of the times (made worse by the last 14 years) that so many people think that. They aren't, despite appearances. The HoC doesn't help, when many people's only exposure to politics is a small clip of the nightly news of a chamber looking and sounding like a posh boys club. It needs to change in physical layout / format and rules.

So feel free to vote for none of the above, if that's how you feel. But there is 0% chance anything will change if everyone thought that way. At least there is a chance if you do.

Some things need to change I agree.. but are we suprised many people feel that way with the state of the country.. nope. Has it always been this way, actually I don't think it has. I think there have been some periods of good government and it felt like we were living in a country that was well enough led and things.. worked (for most people).
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The need for things to improve is of course what we all want(I certainly don't want another long recession) but due to the nature of our democracy that is almost a flight of fancy. How many of the policies invoked by the governments over time have a serious benefit to the whole country? Not many I would assume.
 
redeye said:
According to many people that's not the case today with Labour. Some say they offer nothing different and are Tory lite. Others like me who understand most of the UK are centrists don't think it is the case and it's not just policy differences that matters, its competence.
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Pretty much this... any party that wants to come into power needs to be centrists and start to move towards their side of the divide as they get re-elected and grow in confidence.

Even thou I feel that the media has moved to the right and there are more than ever outspoken people on either sides of the divide who live in echo chambers and believe that they are part of the majority.
Most people at the end of the day are centrists, understand it's a bit of give and take and will vote for a centrists party.

The whole two party system is just a cycle, Labour comes in spends a load of money and increases taxes. Then Torries come in and sells off all the stuff that labour puts in place and tries to keep taxes lower.
We have had a spanner in the cycle due to Brexit; and Torries staying in power for much longer than expected as they was the brexit party, it didn't help that one man (Corbyn) placed his "ego" and "morals" above the parties and the country.

The Torries have been in that long, I don't think they know what to do, hence all the internal fighting and change of leaders.. This is not the same Torries that your parents voted for as they certain live long enough to become the villain.
 
Raumarik said:
I'd rather get the deficit down. What a mess we're leaving for future generations.
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The problem is when anyone points out the obvious re: cutting pensions for people already wealthy, getting people with assets to pay for care etc. overhaul the planning system so we can build more homes then there is outcry.

May was pretty progressive re: funding care but prompted outcries of "dementia tax" from Corbyn and chums, so now we have a system where contributions are capped, someone with modest assets gets wiped out and millionaires get protected (and there are plenty of boomer millionaires thanks to house prices).

Ditto to the state pension, one person earning 50k pays just about enough NI to cover a state pension for one retired person and that's not including NHS care and everything else. With changing demographics (large number of boomers) is it really fair that someone with say a 600k house and a nice private pension and say 200k in investments is still collecting a state pension of 11k a year?

Keep working millennials on 50k, 60k, 70k... even though you can barely afford to buy a flat or small terrace house the boomers in the large detached home want some more wealth distribution in their favour.

And of course, just in general the lack of house building thanks to our overly bureaucratic planning system is a huge issue - what % of people's take-home pay is spent on rent or mortgages these days? That plays into everything else, with less disposable income (thanks to high housing costs) then there is less to spend and that impacts the rest of the economy and so on... we could be much better off with cheaper housing and could afford to pay more in tax (doesn't even need to be higher rates if we get an increase in productivity too) and in turn have better services... but any new building of homes or indeed infrastructure (high speed rail, nuclear power) gets derailed by nimbys.
 
I'd rather they increase all thresholds inline with inflation (and recalculate them from when they froze them) than significantly raise taxes and then cancel a tiny bit of it and call it a "tax cut", nobody is getting a tax cut as long as the thresholds are frozen.

A 1% cut to the basic NI rate (from 12.5k to 50k) is at max about £375 per person per year unless they cut the top rate as well.
 
redeye said:
Labour have said many times that to fund the country long term the economy needs to grow. Something which this government has failed to do to any meaningful level in 14 odd years. GDP per capita is pathetic, general productivity is pathetic, living standards - falling and in some cases lower than Eastern European countries who everyone use to look at and point and laugh. The far left won't like the arguement about the economy but it's entirely true.

If you get people back to work by helping to fix the NHS, skills shortages, inward investment have a proper industrial / business strategy etc you'll get more tax take.

Just going along with only looking at tax being high or moderate is not going to solve the underlying problems with the country.

If the Tories lower taxes across the board, I would have no issue with Labour saying they would raise it again for high earners. But I can see why they might not want to do that, instead they are concentrating on getting more people into work.
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A couple posters have already mentioned that our economy is a Ponzi scheme.. and it does seem to be largely true.

But really, what's stopping us from funding public services properly with the economy as it stands, today? Inflation aside.

Is the only way to maintain our public services to have infinite economic growth? That seems like a hard sell, to me. There must be a better way.
 
HACO said:
I'd rather they increase all thresholds inline with inflation (and recalculate them from when they froze them) than significantly raise taxes and then cancel a tiny bit of it and call it a "tax cut", nobody is getting a tax cut as long as the thresholds are frozen.

A 1% cut to the basic NI rate (from 12.5k to 50k) is at max about £375 per person per year unless they cut the top rate as well.
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That 1% is on top of previous 2% so it is significant
 
HACO said:
I'd rather they increase all thresholds inline with inflation (and recalculate them from when they froze them) than significantly raise taxes and then cancel a tiny bit of it and call it a "tax cut", nobody is getting a tax cut as long as the thresholds are frozen.

A 1% cut to the basic NI rate (from 12.5k to 50k) is at max about £375 per person per year unless they cut the top rate as well.
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Sounds like a good headline though, we're cutting taxes for hard working people. Workers will have more money for themselves!
Utter twaddle.
 
I would like to have functional public services even if it means paying more taxes, but I don't imagine that functional public services are on the table with current government regardless of tax burden.
 
FoxEye said:
Is the only way to maintain our public services to have infinite economic growth? That seems like a hard sell, to me. There must be a better way.
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The whole world is built on infinite growth....just think of all the poor people if you doubt we can achieve it (at least for the foreseeable). Entire countries are barely online yet.
 
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