Off Topic The Politics Thread

Well, nothing in my post suggested that I wanted the lowest paid to contribute more, either. Tinkering with rax rates and thresholds for the lowest paid is fine, but small beer. Make the rich pay, make the multi-nationals pay. £2 on every Amazon transaction, 50p on every Starbucks cup of coffee.

 

The freeze on income tax thresholds is a very regressive way of raising revenue and hits the poorest hardest as they have less disposable income. Everything we're going through now is because these idiots painted themselves into a corner saying no increase on the three taxes and Rachel's disastrous first budget. The constant drip feed of leaks is a sure sign she is out of her depth but Starmer knows if this budget goes the same way he's done for. The grown ups are in the last chance saloon...

 

This government has been inept, but everything we're going through now is not its fault, it's down to the suicidal folly of Brexit and a 14-year Tory ****show. There's a simple solution - rejoin the Single Market.

 

Hooray - I get a 50p an hour pay rise!

 

do the poor not use amazon or starbucks
because you know amazon etc will pass on any increases

 

OBR report on the Reeves budget leaked before she presents it to Parliament.

Seems the budget itself contains everything we already knew.

 

Most of the leaks are from inside the government 'testing the Waters', with the internet nothing is kept secret anymore...

 

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I think someone called it a budget fandango that created uncertainty and more disillusionment in a government that said they needed to make strong decisions but just didn’t know which ones they were until they tested those waters. What a way to govern!!

 

The Times has a couple of sob stories about people facing the mansion tax. Neither roused my sympathy - an 88 year old woman living alone in a six bedroom £4m house in North Kensington which was bought for £4000 in 1970. She moans about the cost of upkeep as well as the new tax, even though she won’t pay anything until she sells the house or dies.

The other a retired couple with a £1.9m house in Cambridgeshire which they want to sell quickly so they don’t get taxed, and move to London where they already have a £2m+ house rented out.

My heart bleeds.

 

Net migration to the UK has fallen by 69% and is now at pre-Brexit levels. Hurrah!

Of course it had shot up after Brexit when Boris Johnson had to invite hundreds of thousands into the country from Africa and Asia to replace the Europeans who had left the UK when their free movement within the EU no longer applied here - the supreme Brexit irony. Still, it has to be good news doesn't it? Well, no actually. The OBR report into the budget noted that low net migration was a significant factor in holding back economic growth, and demographic statistics show that there are now just 3 working-age people for every pensioner in the UK, whereas in 1961, there were 20. It's a simple fact that we need significant levels of immigration to keep the economy going - not to mention the NHS and social care - but no politician seems to be able to bring themselves to acknowledge this. It's the unspoken truth.

 

I only saw a headline which was basically ‘good immigrants down, bad immigrants about the same, emigration up’. I think arguing against inward migration entirely is quite a fringe view but people coming in who don’t pay their way and not bringing in people who do, while losing people who do doesn’t sound a recipe for success.