The papers and media have been running weeks of stories of higher taxes, on savings, on pensions, on private equity, on leaving money on death, on buying and owning property, on making profits on a business or from owning shares, At any point the Chancellor could have ruled out some or all of this speculation. Instead she seemed to delight in the array of ideas being generated to tax anyone more who dared to work hard, save more, succeed in business or own assets,
She has given interviews in the past querying tax breaks for ISA s, complaining of private equity carried interest, displaying a hostility to wealth creation and ownership. The only constraint on her wish to tax higher incomes, better pensions, more wealth may be the thought that putting the tax rates up too high could lead to a loss of revenue and a further exodus from the country. This weak view of the Treasury does not extend to the valid view that lower tax rates on income, wealth and transactions can usually boost revenues.
It’s the politics of jealousy, the economics of misery. Offering people tax incentives through ISAs to save is a good idea. No need to discourage it. Making it attractive for private equity to invest here is good for jobs. Don’t send them abroad. Letting people build a decent pension pot allows them to look forward to retirement and avoid claims on the state. Why be jealous? Allowing relief from Inheritance tax for some U.K. assets encourages investment. Why risk it?
Tax rates are already too high in the U.K. Non Dom changes have driven rich people out. Tax changes to property is reducing the number of rented properties. Limits of tax relief for pensions led some like doctors to retire early. Tax rises will slow growth. Particularly clumsy ones will reduce tax receipts. As a supporter of the government’s faster growth aim I urge the Chancellor to think again before hitting the strivers, savers and investors.
October 20, 2024
The UK tax rates thanks to Cameron, Osborne May, Hammond, Boris, Sunak, Hunt… and the insanity of the covid lockdowns and net harm covid vaccines are already way above the rates for maximum tax take. Further increases will reduce the tax take not increase it. It will also throttle growth and reduce the tax base for future years. With the insanity of net zero rip off energy piled on top of this and rigged markets in housing, healthcare, transport, education, energy, banking… it is an economic doom loop.
This government and Reeves are mad. They say they want growth but almost every single thing she and they push is anti-growth and against the people.
Not of course that taxes should be fixed for maximum tax take or the Laffer point. They should be way below this at a level that means government can do only those rather few things that government can do best. Defence, law and order and not much more. 25% of GDP is plenty for this.
October 20, 2024
Why does the government hate strivers, savers and successful people? The evil politics of envy to buy votes I suppose. But not so much that they hate them as, like female mosquitos, leeches and lampreys, spiders… see them as targets to be robbed of their blood and earnings and to bleed then to death.
The problem with socialists is they soon run out of other people to bleed dry. They invariable waste all this stolen blood on damaging lunacies like net zero.
See “Government Against the National Interest by David Starkey” video.
October 20, 2024
Weell, lets look at the data. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-spending-to-gdp
Now I’m for lower government involvement in the economy and lower taxes for all. Look at the USA lower down the chart.
What Starmer and Reeves see is the ‘target’ ratio of the average of EU countries; even Germany is way above the UK. What we’re getting is a national economic reset based on left of centre, neo-socialist ideals, bringing us into line with the EU. We can then more easily rejoin and integrate. The fact that EU countries are suffering more than us really doesn’t matter. Does anybody think Starmer, Reeves and the Blob know how to run a ‘profitable’ economy?
October 20, 2024
25% is about right. But the UK has very high spending, very poor public services and much of the spending is hugely wasted or spent doing positive harms. Net zero, HS2, pointless worthless degree loans…
Leaked papers reveal chaos at the heart of HS2 – well what a surprise! An insane project started by Labour and backed by Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak and Starmer! So are they morons or is it crony capitalism or even actually full corruption?
October 20, 2024
The reason government should spend under 25% of GDP is simple. People and businesses on balance spend and invest their own money so much more wisely and efficiently than governments do. See Milton Freeman on the four types of money. As it is in the UK they are nearly spending 50% of GDP yet cannot even provide the very basics of good defence or law and order. They cannot even stop the boats and we have blatant two tier justice, shop lifting, phone thefts and muggings totally out of control with almost zero police inaction. Two tier justice even written into law. Misogyny a hate crime but not misandry for example, all women short lists, a minister for women and equality but not for men, RAF pilots no more useless white men…
31 Months in jail for a childish and no more than a foolish tweet (and she allegedly got 1/3 of for pleading guilty) that was rapidly withdrawn but a suspended sentence for 100+ shoplifting offences. Very little action against clearly anti-Semitic protests yet huge police action anything against anyone who think low skilled immigration is rather too high.
If government spend only 25% of GDP and spent it well (and got out of the way of the productive) the GDP would of course be far higher circa 50-100% higher.
October 20, 2024
Liebour want everyone to rely on the state
It’s called communism
If they could get away with it they would allocate us a government funded stipend. The big but is no one would work to fund ot.
This is admirably demonstrated by the welfare system. Pay the people not to work and they won’t.
An unintended consequence is the rest of the world wants some of this largesse and are willing to risk their lives for it.
October 20, 2024
Correct.
October 20, 2024
IW :
I agree except for your last sentence. Mass immigration, both legal and illegal, is intended and not stopped. They are international communists not national communists.
October 20, 2024
So Robert Jenrick is finally saying the right thinks now that he is past the MP voting state.
“He has promised to tear up the Climate Change Act if he becomes Tory leader and eventually prime minister.
He has said he will scrap major pieces of Blair and Brown era legislation including the Climate Change Act, Equality Act and Human Rights Act under a “Great Reform Act” if he makes it to No 10.
His plans include scrapping carbon budgets and unburdening businesses of equality laws which have been criticised for driving positive discrimination and political correctness in the workplace.”
A “great reform act” is indeed what is needed as Starkey suggests. Sort out Balir’s dire & botched devolution too. But I assume Jenrick voted for the Climate Change Act as nearly all MPs did (not JR) or was he not an MP at the time? And nodded through May’s moronic Net Zero insanity too.
Reply Good that he has changed his mind. I am voting for Robert because he is setting out sensible policies on net zero, migration and growth.
October 20, 2024
Blair rather.
October 20, 2024
The problem is that half the voters like these things, in some cases very passionately. They would riot. Remember Mrs T’s Poll Tax? It was actually a very reasonable idea but led to widespread rioting in protest by those accustomed to not paying for the local government services they use. The Tory Party is still ‘Broad Church’, meaning, in my view, it doesn’t stand passionately or strongly for anything. Whatever Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch may believe is the right thing to do, either is likely to face fierce opposition from within the party so it cannot have the backing needed for strong government.
October 20, 2024
The new poll tax is rip off Electricity and Gas standing charges why have charges for no energy risen so much? very unfair to the poor. They can wear more jumpers but can do little about these rip off charges for nothing. Rip off water and council tax charges too.
October 20, 2024
I noted with interest that both leadership candidates mentioned returning MP nomination to the local associations – presumably because they know this would be popular with CP members. Even if they do so, they will still have to manage a group of current MPs, many of whom are Central Office ‘placemen’ (e.g. pseudo Lib Dems).
The only reason the current Consvative Party is so “broad church” is because CPHQ believes it needs to be to win votes (and never mind what oikes out in the sticks think). But the local bien pensant have much better idea of what local voters might want than some 30 year old Hooray Henry with a 2nd class PPE degree…
October 20, 2024
PG, So you found Mrs T’s Community Charge a very reasonable idea. Maybe you’ll also remember that Sir John was, as Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities, in charge of abolishing it in March 1991 (only effective in 1993)…. Oops!
October 20, 2024
we’ve had good intentions before, easy to say and promise, until placed in the hot seat.
All rather late to come ‘clean’ and appear to be Party salvation.
Blind faith is no good, actions will be required. Both last Governments are found wanting.
October 20, 2024
Scrapping the Climate Change Act doesn’t mean he won’t still aim to deliver Net Zero. He has said that he will deliver Net Zero but not on the backs of ordinary people (or something very similar to that).
The Climate Change Act created and empowered the Climate Change Committee which has the authority to instruct Governments on the staged reduction of carbon they must implement, and the Law can and is being enforced by the Judiciary (ie Lawfare).
The Not-a-Conservative-Party is stuffed with people who are determined to deliver Net Zero. He won’t be allowed to scrap the policy because it is driven by the UN and WEF. He may, however, be allowed to scrap (or more likely amend) the Climate Change Act and create something more flexible …. although personally, I doubt it.
October 20, 2024
The problem is john his handlers won’t let him do any of that. Without a considerable cohort of Reform MPs there is little chance of any laws being repealed.
You must also factor in any legislation brought in by the tories/Reform will be subject to endless lawfare objections unlike Starmers crowd .
October 20, 2024
Even if Jenrick were elected and was serious about implementing those policies his own MPs would support them.
Reply I agree with what you wrote. I suspect you left a word out.
October 20, 2024
Jenrick is saying what he hopes most people want, and will thus get him votes. If he wins, the chances are he will drop almost all when he comes up against opposition, which will be strong. He won’t fight.
We need someone with powerfull principle, not an administrator.
Reply Robert has come to good conclusions on migration and net ero.You should welcome that. He will stick to these views.
October 20, 2024
Government needs to be responsible for a bit more than that – children’s education and health services for example. Also healthcare for those whose condition has prevented them from earning a living, everyone else to go private with insurance schemes or crowd fund for lifestyle diseases.
The government should phase out the state pension. After a century of occupational pension schemes, why are we still doing this? It’s not as if people’s taxes during employment pays for it, as the government of the day they voted for spent all their contributions in the years they were collected.
October 20, 2024
Nine out of twenty three comments today.
I note the reappearance of ‘drains’ further down after a long absence.
October 20, 2024
We all know Labour are rubbish. That’s not the point. The point is how we are going to rebuild the Tory Party and get back into power with a strong government.
I wish people would stop going on about how rubbish Labour are. We already know it.
October 20, 2024
Governments, and more so the current one, hates strivers, savers, and successful people because they see them as the whores they cannot live without. Additionally they increase the gratification they take by abusing them, a manifestation and increase in the pleasure they take. They transfer their guilt to the whores for having the temerity to survive. The half intelligent in government come to realise that their excessive self gratification destroys the prostitution they depend on. I think that is sufficient metaphor to explain your question.
You may have done it in micro dots over the years, but now you have no loyalties to answer to, what is your manifesto vision for a future UK.
October 20, 2024
Not sure I like the prostitute analogy much. More of a parasitic, blood sucking and often actually killing or pushing overseas the victims or perhaps they just work less arrangement. Not a “sustainable” plan. I though they liked “sustainability”.
If one parent of two children at private school decided to work say £100k PA less PA and send them to state schools rather than pay the VAT then it is likely the state will lose about £50k in tax, have to pay out about 24k in state school costs and will get probably less well educated pupils plus no VAT so £74k down for the state. Yet Reeves seems to think this will raise money? Same for Hunts and Reeves Non Dom abolition lunacy They even lie that it is a “tax break” for private schools. Just as Osborne lied that interest relief for landlords was a “tax break”.
October 20, 2024
LL,
Is it because the analogy too accurately describes governments past and present that eight submissions with the usual condemnation of vaccines only nibble at.
October 20, 2024
Good morning.
Yes ! Thanks to who ? 😉
It is not just tax, but also a mirriad of other little things, such as ‘fiscal drag’. You know, when a government freezes the point at which tax has to be paid. Then there are the various rates, such as fuel on cars. These too are frozen and do not keep in line with price rises. And one could go on.
All this is slowly draining money away from those who produce reducing the energy to drive the economy and push up the mythical GDP figure. So their answer is to import more people who consume more resources, usually State resources such as the NHS, which in turn costs money which the government has to borrow because it is not getting enough in taxes.
And so the circle / loop of economic decline goes on until the Markets say enough is enough. Then reality sets in.
It is all a question of when ?
October 20, 2024
Thanks to whom? Well Osborne, Hammond, Sunak, Hunt mainly and the insane lockdowns and net harm vaccines.
The tax increase are vast.
Stamp duty was 1% tops now 15% tops, IPT insurance tax 0% now 12%, no longer CGT indexation, Brown and other pension muggings, frozen and cut personal allowances, loss of child benefit and personal allowances at £50k and £100k, the 45% income tax rate, CT up 25%, NI both up, CGT up to 28% flight taxe was zero now can be 50% of the cost of the flight, council tax up, single person discount reduced, tax still charge on vacant period too, car taxes and car mugging up hugely, “congestion tax, ULEZ tax, parking taxes, enveloped dwelling taxes … endless tax grabs everywhere you look. Yet public services are dire and declining!
October 20, 2024
And let’s not forget some notable Tory Government wealth taxes: the car tax premium on ICE cars costing more than £40k (effective from April 2017) and the second home premium (a doubling of Council tax in England from April 2025).
October 20, 2024
Indeed many other tweaks to grab more tax too. The overlap rules when sell one home to buy another for example, the time you have to file CGT returns, fees for probate, land registry etc.
October 20, 2024
NI isn’t up the Tories decreased it considerably, you chose not to notice, so now it appears it can rise with ease.
October 20, 2024
Apparently Labour needs our money because it wants to “stabilise the economy” in order to “change Britain”.
And of course it has been handed a huge, weird majority so to do by all those who were so desperate for “change”!
I’d say that it wants us poor so it can exert maximum control over us.
October 20, 2024
They just want our money so they can piss it down the drain doing positive harm with mad things like net zero, to help their union backers plus much other crony capitalism.
October 20, 2024
Hotels and allowances for illegal immigrants arriving at up 900 a day costs a bit too.
October 20, 2024
Exactly.
And when we are focussing only on where the next crust is coming from and how to stop the snow coming in the broken roof and we are cold and ill with no recourse to health services…we will be too weak to put up any opposition.
“Poverty, poverty knocks”
And it suits them.
For us that is…
October 20, 2024
Nothing weird about the majority, it simply spelled out the absolute revolt of opinion causing millions to stay home, a small percentage still voted for the silly Libdems, but 4m reached for Reform in the too-late hope for rescue.
Thats what the last Government report card said.
October 20, 2024
Answering your question, Sir John. Why does government hate stivers, savers and successful people? I would offer the reason is, because such people are out of reach of government control. They are individuals that can and do have the means, which they have generated to make their own decisions and do their own thing, when they wish too.
That state of ‘individualism’ is completely anathema to government control. It conflicts with their and micro management principles. That state knows best attitude, was developed in the last fifty years which coincides perfectly with the advancement (sic) of the EU and our time spent within it.
Sadly, we are still in its influence unable to make our own laws and rules in line with our National best interest. We are still beholden to the EU priorities and locked into its international reach.
The sooner we fully leave the EU, as was decided by the people back in 2016, the better off we will all be.
October 20, 2024
Well said. My conclusion as well.
October 20, 2024
That’s the nub of it. Independent people are to be feared if you are a budding communist state.
October 20, 2024
Sir John asks, ‘Why does the government hate strivers, savers and successful people?’
Because the Starmer’s Labour is socialist liberal authoritarian and wants equality of outcomes, what they on the Woke Left call equity. They have a choice of three options:
1. The standard Do Nothing option
2. Improve educational and skills standards of the less intelligent and less advantaged
3. Squash those who would excel too much lest their success offends the low achievers.
Their hatred of people who do not believe in Socialism is so great, Option 1 is not acceptable. Option 2 has already failed through poor state education, mass immigration instead of investing in skills development of native Brits. Option 3 is the easiest to implement and its destructiveness sates their hatred. It makes them feel good.
October 20, 2024
It’s all part of the Great Reset to take wealth from the middle classes and give it to the less well off. Of course they and their cronies won’t suffer. My hard earned money isn’t mine to do with as I please. I could bet it all on a horse but I’m not allowed to gift it to my children. Total nonsense. Just read all the latest Pacts coming out of the United Nations and you will see their intentions to destroy generational wealth.
October 20, 2024
Middle classes? Any slight possibility of improving status for the low incomes but hard working and the young families trying to get on in life are going to be crushed. All state services are being restricted and allowed to grow even more inefficient, the objective being to acclimatise the people to a poorer quality of life forcing a disillusioned population to become apathetic.
October 20, 2024
Correct. It’s “levelling down” in action.
October 20, 2024
Well currently you are allowed to give it to anyone tax free so long as you live seven years PETs. You can take life cover if in good health to cover this quite cheaply. You can also give regular gifts from surplus income (without the seven years issue) and trading companies & some AIM listed companies, farm land… can be exempt.
But in two weeks time after Reeves thieving budget who knows?
October 20, 2024
Can you transfer your wealth to your children by making large unwise wagers with them? Like England to win any major football trophy.
October 20, 2024
I think the answer to the question you pose is, in part, a mixture of the politics of envy (of the better off), of ignorance (of what drives business activity and growth) and of addiction (to the mistaken belief that high government spending is a cost free option).
October 20, 2024
You say envy of the better off but all the protagonists are better off. All the grifters in the liebour party want to shore up their wealth and position funded by the little people.
Look at free beer, no idea Kier and his special pension. Some are more equal than others.
October 20, 2024
The Chancellor needs to be focusing on cutting central and local government waste and inefficiency and reducing everyones taxes – not sustaining all that and raising taxes to pay for even more of it.
If we go on with perenial waste and inefficiency Britain will inevitably go bankrupt just like it did in the 1970’s – queuing up with Third World countries for a loan from the IMF. That was a disgrace then and we are on course for it happening again, eg the next attack on Britain by our enemies in the form of another pandemic or a huge cyber attack could very well bankrupt us right there and then. If its not that, it will be the longer-term retardation of the economy by Socialism.
The State is far too big and the tax burden and sovereign debt levels are dangerously high. If the Chancellor cant see the urgent need to address this then she is unworthy of her job.
October 20, 2024
“The Chancellor needs to be focusing on cutting central and local government waste and inefficiency and reducing everyone’s taxes”
That would be rather a novelty! When did we have have that? Slightly under Thatcher I suppose buy not much.
October 20, 2024
Indeed. I am interested to see what Labour’s first pro-growth policy will be. So far there have only been anti-growth measures, and especially signalling.
October 20, 2024
The Labour Party has always espoused the politics of envy, spite and hatred. When did you last see Conservative Party supporters outside a Labour Party conference screaming hatred and spitting at people entering and leaving? Their attitude is that if you have a lot of money it is somehow undeserved and should be taken from you. The idea that you might have worked bloody hard and saved it does not occur to them. It is merely unfair that you have more than others do. The fact that the Prime Minister has a pension pot that is so large that it had to be protected by legislation is an irony that escapes them. After all, some animals are more equal than others.
October 20, 2024
What is the difference between a fee paying school and a charity funded single sex school?
Very little I would suggest.
The aim of both ( unlike state schools) is to establish a fast track to Oxbridge and provide a priviledged future for their pupils.
Yet one is demonised and taxed and ( I think) stripped of its charitable status and the other enabled to produce “leaders”.
Who then proceed to pull up the ladder!
October 20, 2024
Why? I think there are two reasons:
1. Socialist Governments are always in the business of “levelling down.” That is what redistribution of wealth, according to their perception of who is deserving, means ….. taking from those who have provided for themselves and giving it to those who haven’t for whatever reason. They justify it with nice words like “sharing, helping, fairness.”
2. Because people who are independent, resilient, successful, adaptable and take responsibility for providing for themselves and their family are more likely to be independent-thinkers and are far less reliant on the State.
They are therefore far harder to control.
The Government (on behalf of the WEF) wants a population which is none of those things and is therefore entirely dependent on the State and easy to control.
October 20, 2024
Exactly so, that defines the labour party, and why socialism means the death of anything good. But mix that with another irrational ideology, netzero, and you have disaster.
The claim is that under socialism we would all be equal – what they hide is that we would all be reduced to the lowest common denominator of survival – only the leaders would be rich. The masses would be simple poor uneducated peasants in the long term.
Labour were supposed to be the party of the people. If they ever were then That has changed – they are the party for themselves, acting like petty dictators to impose their insanity on us. To re-engineer us back to a time when peasants didn’t question their betters, their masters.
In the meantime we can expect more punishing taxes because labour hate the rich – unless it is themselves – because they now have the power and will use it to cement our decline. What else can they be doing with so many oppressive actions against ordinary people?
October 20, 2024
The question might equally be levelled at the last government. Why for the entirety of their administration did they continue with employer’s NI? A tax designed to stifle British industry in favour of foreign companies, making them less competitive on the global market and against imports.
The present government is worse than the last. They see employment through union eyes, as an adversarial relationship. They have no concept that small businesses treat their employees like family.
October 20, 2024
This government, much like the last, is a Socialist government. They do NOT do that which you quite rightly describe.
None of them are worthy. But we get the government we deserve, although I cannot think on what we have done to get this sorry lot.
Our only hope are the Markets. Once they smell economic blood in the water, they will soon bring this house of cards down.
October 20, 2024
They can’t help themselves. Raising taxes is in Labour’s DNA. It’s akin to watching clowns in a soap opera.
October 20, 2024
I read that the Meloni policy of transferring illegals to Albania for processing is under attack from activist judges, who have ruled that they must be returned to Italy as Bangladesh and Egypt are not ‘safe countries’. Apart from Hungary, where Orban purged communist-era judges amid outrage from the EU, this entrenched globalism is a problem across Europe. Either we need to rebalance the judiciary to reverse measures such as the Blair reforms or the law needs to be changed to remove the rights of illegal immigrants to access the legal system.
October 20, 2024
Why? Because as international communists they hate not simply “strivers, savers and successful people” but the whole country. The current PM and leader of the Uniparty has already told us he prefers Davos to Westminster.
Mass immigration is designed to destroy our culture, cohesion and hence our nationhood. Diversity together with the encouragement of mass Illegal immigration is designed to cause resentment and social breakdown as well as making the country militarily insecure.
Unilateral Net Zero is designed to destroy our prosperity. Even if they did believe in the UN’s false claim that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 has led us into an era of global boiling they wouldn’t sabotage our prosperity for our 1% contribution to CO2 emissions if they really cared for the people of this country. How can they claim that this 1% reduction through de-industrialisation will save the planet followed by CBAM to further crush our standard of living and emissions? Wouldn’t they take measures instead to mitigate the effects of an increase in the average global temperature currently running at 0.14 degrees C per decade?
The reason for unilateral Net Zero has absolutely nothing to do with saving the planet from anthropogenic emissions of CO2. They want to end our prosperity.
October 20, 2024
“Why does the government hate strivers, savers and successful people?” As they will never support Labour who requires only those that are beholden to the State to exsist
October 20, 2024
“Letting people build a decent pension pot allows them to look forward to retirement and avoid claims on the state” Why is ‘Two Tier Kiers’ protected bu Law from Government/Treasury/His own Chancellors attacks and the pots of the Minions ‘Not’?
As it is often said about Liebors one rule for them and another for the Surfs
October 20, 2024
Xxxx From the Telegraph, “Mark Drakeford, the Welsh secretary for finance, has defended his exemption from Wales’s second home council tax raid after owners of similar properties were forced to pay thousands of pounds more.”
Now there is talk of those that work for the State and send their kids to Private/Public Schools being exempt from the ‘tax’. tax isn’t meant to hit those that are employed by the State
October 20, 2024
The Ayn Rand institute says there are “two main types of characters: the creators, who work to achieve and produce values, and the looters, who do not produce and instead seek to take values from others.”
If John allows here are the cliff notes for Atlas Shrugged https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/atlas-shrugged/about-atlas-shrugged
All independent minds are to be closed down. Musk will be an example of this if Harris wins.
As you know I’m not a fan of Farage but I hate the incitement to violence against this man. The encouragement to the educationally challenged to throw liquid over him and the glee with which those incidents are received by the mainstream is wrong. Its the same with those who hate on Tories like Braverman, Patel (that cartoon image of her should have been prosecuted), it seems that only those on the right wing get caught quickly and prosecuted strongly quickly. If this continues I can see a time when bloggers will all have to have speech insurance as only Ministers of the Crown seem to have freedom to mispeak
October 20, 2024
Why, because politicians appear not like people with wealth, because those people can do choose what they do, and do as they like (within the law) no matter how much Governments try to limit them.
That is why Governments do not like self employment because those sort of people are difficult to control, so they do it by legislation and taxation.
The problem is at what limit do you categorise someone as wealthy, as it seems to me that the bar is being lowered and lowered each year, so as to include more and more people just to raise more in taxes.
The problem is that we have now reached a point where, nurses, teachers, railway workers and host of other what used to be normal type jobs, are being taxed at a higher rate, but are these people wealthy ?
If you own a one bedroom flat inside the M25 worth more than £325,000 are you wealthy ?
If you have a pension pot of £250,000 producing an income of perhaps £10,000 a year are you wealthy.?
What is the point of working hard, risk investing your own money in a business, if the Government are going to always take the largest share, and then tax what is left when you die.
The government is destroying peoples work ethic, financial risk taking, because there is now little reward for such.
October 20, 2024
Excellent post Alan.
I agree with all you say.
October 20, 2024
The Telegraph has today published a cartoon depicting the Chancellor as “Rachel Hood”. It would perhaps have been more accurate to depict her as “The Shadow” from Blackadder III; her likely attitude brings to mind Baldrick’s observation “half way to being a new Robin Hood – steals from the rich, but hasn’t got round to giving it to the poor”.
October 20, 2024
Hands off my ISA! I put my working-life savings into ISAs rather than pensions, because pensions were already (and I felt were going to get) more regulated than ISAs. As a lower rate taxpayer all my life the tax relief on pensions wasn’t enough bait to go down the pension route, with the limits on what you could take out etc. I saved hard, restraining my spending on any luxuries.
Now I live in fear that my life savings are going to be taxed again. To add insult to injury, I’m characterised as a rich fat cat that should “pay back” some of its ill-gotten wealth to those “less fortunate” (i.e. the lazy and spendthrift, illegal migrants etc) and “contribute to society” (e.g. HS2, Ukraine and the Third World, Quangos, bureaucracy etc). Ouch!
October 20, 2024
I think the answer to your question is that not a single member of the cabinet has ever worked for or owned a private sector business. Not one of them. What is curious is that Starmer’s stated aim is growth but not a single one of his actual policies will increase growth. That’s with the exception of his proposed planning reforms which of course will be scuppered by NIMBY MPs and local politicians of all parties.
October 20, 2024
The politics of envy, instead of trying to raise everyone’s aspiration to better themselves, they just want to bring everyone down to the lowest level, that way you are reliant on the government for everything and they have complete control over your life.
October 20, 2024
The answer is simple, just two words :
Greed and Envy
October 20, 2024
There are more people without money than with money.
The left believe in levelling down so will always talk about those with the broadest shoulders bearing the load, this appeals to the majority so the Conservative and the right also need to use this redistribution language. Both parties know they have run out of money so have started to talk about growth as well to pay for their promises.
To get elected parties have to promise to make others pay for their largesse ergo they hate (but love the existence of) savers, strivers and successful people.
Thus government may be the one that plucks too many feathers from the golden geese
October 20, 2024
It’s not just the attack on strivers, savers and successful people, the Globalist Uni-Party wants to destroy Britain.
I’ve regarded the government as hostile ever since the Johnson Regime used Orwellian pseudoscience to lock us all down.
October 20, 2024
The public have had it easy for too long.
What I mean by that is QE has allowed Governments to slowly deflate the economy without the public noticing. Which means there has not been a crisis or large scale unemployment.
So off the back of that the Government have inflated the state and increased debt by not encouraging saving for pensions, importing millions of low paid migrants, not stopped social media causing mental health problems, using the luxury beliefs of migration and net zero to virtue signal.
In otherwords it is the natural progress of politicians without external pressures to create a state with unsustainable latent debt and risk.
We have got out selves into a situation where any collapse in revenue will realise the risks and increase the cost of the debt. The larger problem is that this will hurt pensioners, create a need for visa cancellations and criminal deportations, reverse luxury human rights and significantly reduce the standard of living.
October 20, 2024
It is odd that the Labour Chancellor attacks the “rich” when her boss is one of them.
How will Mr Starmer dodge the new taxes planned for him and all of the other millionaires who reside here? Or will he be excused because he is a socialist?