Roughly half the country earns too little, does not own a home, has little or no savings and lacks access to a good pension scheme. The better off half pays most of the Income tax and all the wealth taxes on capital gains, buying homes and shares, inheritance legacies and dividend income.
People with conservative views want to create an opportunity society where more by effort and work can increase their earnings, accumulate savings, buy assets. Those who cannot do this through disability or other impediment should get benefits and state provision to a decent standard.
Labour offers redistribution. Why they say should the rich get away with owning homes and shares, and earning more. They must be taxed. As there are not enough super rich to tax to cover all the bills, the higher income and wealth taxes have to be imposed on the better off half of the country.
There are two big problems with this approach. The first is many who are on lower incomes are not jealous and want to be upwardly mobile. Many low income people think it right that great footballers or successful entrepreneurs earn fabulous salaries.
The second is all those who have worked hard and saved do not wish to pay higher taxes or have their wealth confiscated. In the 1970 s when Labour imposed a 98% tax rate on so called unearned income many left the country to avoid the expropriation of their savings.
Labour today has pushed income and wealth taxes too high. August figures for receipts show Capital Gains tax, Inheritance tax and self employed Income tax down on the previous year following the tax rises put through by the Chancellor. This is a warning sign.
I have always argued that the rich have to pay most of the tax, but you need to set rates and taxes that they will stay to pay. Lower rates do bring in more revenue. Today the rich are leaving in large numbers. The better off not so rich have plenty of ways of legally avoiding tax. They are refusing to sell shares and second homes sitting on big gains. They turn down opportunities to do more work. They decline to set up new businesses, create new jobs or make higher risk investments.
If the government carries on looking for more ways to tax the better off half they will find the taxpayers strike can get worse whilst all abide by tax law. I have avoided the high Congestion charge in London since it went up by never driving on CC streets during the controlled hours. There are plenty of other things that entail paying tax for people to stop doing.
September 20, 2025
The politics of envy always fails it is pure evil. Take the VAT on school fees which makes people pay 4 times over for private education. The policy will raise no net tax as many will switch to state school and perhaps stop working as they no longer have to pay the fees. This is the complete reverse of what is needed which is more people paying for their children’s education and their own healthcare. It is four times over for healthcare too with IPT insurance tax at 12%. What is needed is free, fair and unrigged competition.
The evil, bitter, nasty, destructive and totally deluded politics of envy dope Bridget Phillipson “Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery. Our children need mental health support more than private schools need new pools. Our students need careers advice more than private schools need AstroTurf pitches.”
September 20, 2025
The politics of envy is just about one of the most disgusting pig-ignorant aspects of the Labour party. It so obviously hasn’t learned, has it? Heaven help us all on Budget Day this year.
September 20, 2025
Yes Cathy, we’d better strap ourselves in for another offensive by thieves. How is she possibly going to manage yearvon year as taxes especially from the North Sea and industry keep reducing.
I see a Cyprus style direct attack on our savings accounts and shares.
September 20, 2025
A 12.5% hair cut on your bank deposits was it not in Cyprus pure government theft. Will I get the same off my company overdrafts if Reeves does this?
September 20, 2025
While it is valid to minimise the damage taxes do to the economy and personal enterprise it is not right to maximise the potential tax take for at least two reasons. First public spending is inefficient, I say inherently inefficient, so that the same service is provided much more cheaply by the private sector (for example nursery education, care homes, swimming pools are provided far more cheaply and far more efficiently for the same facility as the public sector manages). Second it is better for individual people to decide how to spend their own money than to have it taken away and spent for them by others, that is government.
September 20, 2025
The politics of envy destroys ambition, entrepreneurship and disincentivises work. Why bother striving, if the taxman takes all your dough.
And when the tax is being squandered on nonsense like HS2, the criminal migrants, the Net Zero insanity and Labour’s other assorted virtue-signalling causes (including millions of benefit claimants and their motability cars) it’s a strong incentive to pay as little towards the pot as possible.
It isn’t just the super wealthy who can minimise their tax. Even people like me, with assets and savings but by no means wealthy can make adjustments to reduce their tax liability, and I have. If everyone does the same of course tax revenue will decrease.
You’d think an Economist with ten years experience at the Bank of England would know that. Oh …..
September 21, 2025
100% agree Donna.
September 20, 2025
I very much agree that ‘many who are on lower incomes are not jealous and want to be upwardly mobile’.
There are a lot of these striving, decent people who had an unfortunate start in life or who are currently down on their luck.
I credit much of Margaret Thatcher’s and Donald Trump’s electoral success to understanding this.
They both inspired the low income primarily by lowering taxes, providing a sound economic future and by being patriotic.
September 20, 2025
Isn’t politics of envy the root of Socialism. The UK Schooling teaches entitlement, so entitlement, the right to be given what others achieved has been ingrained into Society.
No one talks of equal contribution, what is taught is others have something the State will hand it to you. The State this Century has embedded Socialism as a religion that must be obeyed.
As a Socialist you can assert your view, if it is challenged you are cancelled.
A bizarre indoctrination of a generation.
September 20, 2025
The politics of envy always fail, but it appears this Labour Government is in blissful ignorance of that fact.
Usually, they come to power when a Conservative Government has stabilised the economy and paid off some of our debt, as in 1997. So they can throw money around for a few years before the economy collapses. However, this time, the Conservative government had not done so and had dramatically increased the UK’s debt.
So they inherited a UK that was broke and deep in debt. Which means the impact of their stupidity has been felt immediately, and this time, they will bankrupt the UK. The next Government will inherit a financial disaster and have to make very tough, hard choices.
September 20, 2025
Envy is one of the 7 deadly sins for a very good reason.
September 20, 2025
Things should be fairer. Take, as an example, the situation whereby a rich person can receive a taxpayer-funded Motability car, which a family is subsidising on a low income; likewise, we can have a wealthy family retaining their subsidised council house at the expense of a poorer family who has to rent privately and pay the market rate.
This country has become unbalanced, and these anomalies need addressing.
I’m all for people being able to keep more of what they earn, but handouts should be means-tested and only available to British citizens.
September 20, 2025
ONS data shows that for some years now, less than half of households in Britain are net contributors to the state.. The surge in immigration will embed this imbalance for generations. It is unsustainable. In the minds of Starmer’s Gang, who hate Britain, this is just another form of reparations as was the Chagos deal. There will be much more of this to come from Starmer’s Gang, which intends nothing but extraction of wealth from Britain to give to the non-western world.
Our enemy is comfortably installed in Nos 10 & 11 Downing Street and I seriously doubt whether Starmer’s Gang will allow us a general election 2029. There is nothing in law to force them to submit to the electorate, only convention. The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 dissolves parliament but leaves the government in office. I cannot see Labour MPs supporting a motion of no confidence in the government at any time and after 4 July 2029 it won’t be able to in any case.