I find it extremely weird that Starmer would accuse Sunak of having a "Corbyn style manifesto" Like, it's extremely weird to use your own former leader as a "bad example"
Yeah, for example Truss was a disaster, but I can't imagine the Tories bomb about the country saying "lol starmer is just as bad as Truss! idiot." I mean, your party members elected these people lol
Edit Increase the personal allowance for basic rate tax payers by £1000. Increase the basic rate by 1% to 21%. Increase higher rate tax to 45% and the additional rate above £125k from 45% to 47% and make almost £18bn in tax revenue. Stick in a windfall tax for all energy companies totalling £30bn on top.
As a non-British resident you can pay voluntary Class III contributions (which are about $50 per month) and end up with a full Government pension. He has worked overseas (Singapore and Indonesia) all his working life and now receives £800 quid a month pension, transferred to his Indonesian bank account. Only disadvantage is if he stays out in Indonesia its not inflation linked.
The windfall tax needs to be rethought. It makes long term planning on investment very difficult, particularly when the energy companies are having to fund a lot of their project investment with their own cash now. It should be replaced by a higher rate of tax that applies to all big companies based on both % profit and actual profit. The mining, telecomms and pharmaceutical companies are making higher profits (as % of revenue) than the oil companies but are not being 'penalised' for this as the actual profit number is not as big. Think this could potentially raise much more money.
Or the energy companies could just pay smaller dividends and bonuses until they sort their acts out - sewerage in our rivers and coastline for instance is scandalous - should be absolute zero ...
I think there might be an element of this. Unfortunately in this country the biggest selling newspapers are still the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times, Mail on Sunday and predominately the press leans to the right. I think Labour know that if they sit tight, they probably have the electoral advantage. But having seen what the press have done to previous Labour campaigns, they will know that a few twisted and alarmist headlines might scare off the voters who are going to switch from Tory to Labour My hope, is that they are more radical in Govt than they are in this campaign. The decision to renationalise the railways (the services at least) hints at where their ethos sits and I genuinely think that they will run a govt that attempts to put public services at the heart of their policy making. They've got business on side this time, so there's always a balancing act between public and private enterprise But I do expect some big policy announcements if they do get into Govt. And possibly they might drop a couple of big hitting polices a week or so before the election.
Down here we pay the highest water charges in the UK because we are surrounded by coastline and don't share borders and infrastructure with other counties (other than devon who are serviced by South west water too) For years, we were also paying a premium on top of that for a scheme called Clean Sweep, which was supposed to put an end to sewage spills and polluted rivers. Yet the incidents of pollution continue, beaches are often red marked for sewage spills and recently there was an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis from contaminated drinking water in Devon. South West water were fined £2m last year for dumping sewage in seas and rivers, but somehow still managed to pay out £116m in dividends It's this sort of shameful ****e that the Tories have allowed privatised companies to get away with for years and it needs to ****in stop.
The Green Party has pledged to raise taxes on UK's top earners in its manifesto, claiming the plans will generate £70bn a year to mend "broken Britain". The plans include raising the National Insurance (NI) rate to 8% on annual wages above £50,270 - equivalent to an extra £283.74 per year in tax for someone earning £55,000. In the lead-up to the manifesto launch, the party committed to spending £50bn per year on health and social care by 2030. Ahead of the manifesto launch, Mr Ramsay said the party intended changing the "conspiracy of silence" on taxes by creating a fairer system and asking those "with the broadest shoulders to pay more". The party will also set out details of a Green Economic Transition programme aiming to upgrade homes across the UK, making them warmer and cheaper to run by increasing energy efficiency. To pay for their plans the party has proposed a new wealth tax charged at 1% on all assets worth more than £10m declared in a self-assessment tax return, increasing to 2% on all assets above £1bn. They would also reform the NI system. Currently employees pay no NI on earnings of up to £12,570, 8% on earnings of between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% on earnings of above £50,270 for the 2023/24 tax year. Under the Greens' plans, the 8% rate would be paid on all wages above the upper earnings threshold. The Greens said they would also: Introduce a carbon tax on businesses starting at £120 per tonne emitted, rising to £500 per tonne over ten years, to push businesses to decarbonise Expand the 75% windfall tax on fossil fuel profits to banks, aiming to raise an extra £9bn a year Bring Capital Gains Tax in line with income tax bands. ^^^^ This is the sort of stuff that Corbyn had in his manifesto, but got destroyed by the right wing press (with the terrorist sympathiser nonsense) For me it's what a Labour Govt should be doing, but they know they will get roasted for saying it, so it's left to the Greens who do not need to worry too much about what the press think as it won't affect their votes as much.
Surely the dividends are out of profit. Suspect salary bill with bonuses are high as a lot of the work is offshore and exploration and production is very complex but main costs will be sub-contractors. Water companies are a completely different kettle of fish. They should be renationalised. Ridiculous that they are private companies, often owned by overseas investors. and can take profits while polluting.
Dividends come out of distributable reserves (which are derived from profits) - but there is no reason that those reserves can't be used for other things - and getting fined for breaching pollution levels whilst lining the pockets of investors is reprehensible - invest those reserves in better water and sewerage treatment rather than hiking consumer bills to pay for such ...
We seem to be talking about different things. I was talking about the Windfall Tax on Energy Companies and saying that something should be applied across the board to all highly profitable companies. Water Companies I think should be renationalised. Any bonuses paid should be based on performance at efficient provision of water and pollution control. I would also renationalise all aspects of the railways. I think it is vital that the government take control of it so that they can use it as a key part of any net carbon zero plan. We should be subsidising rail travel and electric vehicles so that more people use them instead of petrol-fuelled vehicles. Unfortunately I think we have decimated the rail network too much to make it an alternative to cars.
Just been catching up with the lunchtime news, and SKY News are in Cleethorpes & Grimsby. They were interviewing some young guy who works on the flower market, and he said he was still undecided. He felt Labour and Tories are much the same so the 'younger' generation like him were looking at alternative parties, but the convo continued without him saying who the alternative was. However, the reporter eventually came back to it and asked him direct, and he said Reform! He asked him why Reform, and he said the younger generation use social media more and they have a bigger impact on there for younger people. I honestly was not expecting that. I hasten to add ive no idea how old the guy was, I'm rubbish at guessing ages.
I saw they’re polling at about 9% with 18-34s which is a pretty broad group and you’d expect most of that is towards the upper end of the age bracket. Plus the bloke was probably about 47. Plus it’s Grimsby and they don’t do a lot but shag fish so it’s a good source of votes for Farage.
Rishi Sunak has said he went without "lots of things" as a child, including Sky TV. Vote for this man he gets it he’s like the rest of us lol stupid ****
