To think women with 3+ kids should pay less taxes

Indeed! I'm retired, paying income tax on my pension and VAT on many things that I buy.

Maybe you think politicians increasing population density is mad, but what you have to do is look at their actions, not their words-100,000's of people have flowed into Britain every year since the 1970's,a small proportion leave again but the surge in population is simply a fact, no matter how mad you think it is. I may be wrong about their motivation, but it is still a fact.

Now read the comments and think this daft idea through again. Properly!!

I hadn't noticed Turkey, a colonial power for millennia, is particularly influential today.

I literally caveated exactly that in the very first post I mentioned it. It's clearly not the most indicative measure but it's very understandable to the layman (had the PP I was responding to in mind...) as somewhat, if reductively, indicative of soft and hard power.

It's also interesting you mention that – I'm not from Europe and in fact work more closely with the latter 2 countries. I previously explained about the historical legacy of critical mass being conflated with its present impact.

You’re still not really right. “Best passport” lists exist because the country involved has a sufficiently high standard of living that their citizens are unlikely to be overstayers elsewhere, plus an element of soft diplomacy.

New Zealand usually ranks highly and absolutely no one thinks they are a politically influential country (sorry to any Kiwis).

They're not a reflection of political influence in any way shape or form.

You have a very Eurocentric view of the world if you think that Finland is more politically influential than China or India, based on a list about who needs visas at the border.

I'm not comparing them to the UK, but the most populous countries in the world. Among the top 10 most populous countries in the world, only 1 (the US) features on the list you shared. I'm making the point that population mass doesn't dictate a country's political weight in today's era. This includes the UK, which as you pointed out has a relatively small population but is globally still influential.

The reason countries with more people appear powerful today is historical and twofold: a large labour force (as opposed to skilled labour pool, or advanced technological industries) during agricultural/industrial/manufacturing times for increased economic output, and more critical mass for premodern imperialist/colonialist territorial turf wars. Those reasons no longer apply today, but the legacy remains – many of the most populous or colonialist countries back then are first world countries today (including the UK).

Again, the most populous countries in the world (even China and India) don't generally rank very highly relative to their population size, and most are 3rd world countries as well.

Moreover, you've only listed all the countries tied for #1, conveniently ignoring all the other countries within the top #5-10 I mentioned which have smaller populations than just London: Singapore, the Nordic countries, European countries. It's literally there on the list. These countries tend to have the highest skilled labour forces.

I stopped replying the other poster because my mind was just rotting reading their replies. Yes, there's no doubt a large labour force (skilled or unskilled) has its benefits, but both your beliefs that the government is trying to expand the population for political power is simply ridiculous. In fact, the other poster implied the government wanted to increase population density, which is an even more disastrous recipe in modern times.

Sorry if this is rude, but I'm one of those foreigners (ironically "imported" for my economics expertise) the other poster mentioned, and if both your beliefs are common, my mind is simply blown at the level of education in the UK.

I never mentioned depopulating-we have a far higher population than we have ever had-it is not sustainable, the idea nothing can be done without positive pressure on the population is nonsense-nothing can be done REALLY CHEAPLY without it, that's the difference. There is no reason why people who have always lived in the UK can't be trained to do practical jobs, but wages must rise, and there must be far more investment infrastructure and the huge rate of immigration must stop, or we truly are finished -with or without AI. We need a small population with far greater investment like the countries you cited-Norway,Denmark etc, that is the key.

Erm not sure about your passport example.

Too passports currently are Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Spain and Singapore.

Japan’s population is almost twice the size of the UK! Spain, Italy and Singapore are smaller, and the first two not by much. South Korea is only slightly smaller than the UK.

www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/01/2024-power-passport-visa-free-travel/

Perhaps AI can create some humans?

I agree. It seems like according to some people, very soon AI will be looking after increasing numbers of elderly people whilst staffing the NHS, without much human input.
It’ll also have to keep updating itself, because there will be fewer and fewer new engineers and developers.

What on earth is structural unemployment? They do it to keep wages as low as possible , it is also the whole reason we have a "housing crisis" which is ripping up the green spaces we have left. Structural unemployment (I just Googled it ) is nonsense people already here can be easily be trained for technical jobs, it's just cheaper to bring in people already trained-if you want a strong economy training has to be top of the list, I've no idea why you are referencing the Cold War-it's irrelevant now (and then )from an economic point of view.

They want immigration (human capital) to fix something called structural unemployment, not to beat Russia and China in a Cold War era throwback population dick size contest.

Now you can debate on whether immigration is indeed a solution to structural unemployment, and whether the drawbacks are worth it, but the "amassing our cannon fodder in a population contest" theory is totally wacko.

I'm not saying the perception of a bigger population is better politicians is correct-but if you look at policies concerning children and marriage you can clearly see that is the belief, they have hugely boosted the population by allowing a huge amount of immigration over the last 50 years-if they didn't want a bigger population why would that be the policy?-we are a very small crowded island.

Oh gosh wow. It might have worked like that in the past – especially during territorial colonisation / imperialist times, or when industrial production depended on the size of your manpower labour force – but it doesn't work like that anymore.

Things like sovereign funds, national assets, advanced technology and soft power determine a country's relative wealth and political power. Many of the top 10 most populous countries in the world are 3rd world countries.

I know it's an arbitrary ranking, but take a look at the top 10 passports in the world (as a measure of how these countries are politically regarded): Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Finland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, etc usually feature at the top. All extremely small population wise – most have less than the population of London alone.

It's true that some countries become powerful by default, because of economic and historical factors in combination with a large population. However, the UK is never ever going to churn out enough babies to rival America, India or China, so I doubt that's part of the politicians' great imperialist masterplan...

The power of a nation is measured by wealth and size-it has nothing to do with percentages. Politicians are purely interested in wealth and power.

Sorry my brain melted reading this. You know election votes are counted as a % right...?

The government only agree with you because more children means more voters and more voters means more power.

I've also read it and it's a ridiculous argument

I was ready to down vote you but I read your argument and found that actually yes, I agree.

What a strange viewpoint. The planet is already overcrowded with humans, the last thing we need is people being encouraged to produce even more.

Some of these responses are bonkers.

Firstly, public services and benefits are needs-based not contributions-based. This is necessary to ensure that we live in a decent and humane society which cares for the vulnerable and those in need.

Second, most people would probably want our society to have a future. That means children are necessary, though there may be disagreement on the optimal number of children. Most people would probably think that raising children was on balance a socially useful activity, even if they couldn't or didn't want to have any themselves. That's not to knock those who are child-free in any way. Of course there are many socially useful activities which don't involve children in any way.

Thirdly, the way our society is set up is that the middle chunk of society (tax-paying workers) fund a good proportion of the top and the bottom chunks (children and pensioners). So if the middle chunk is continually depleted because there is insufficient investment in the bottom chunk (children), the top chunk will grow continually in proportion to the rest of the population and we'll reach a point where providing humane care for the elderly is unaffordable.

If taxes pay for schools then perhaps the childless should get a tax break instead.

I don't mind people having lots of children but I've seen how tight the budget gets when you've more than three. And I genuinely do feel that over ten is possibly something you should plan for financially rather than vaguely having another one.

People who have more children should pay fewer taxes, since they are working to guarantee the next generation of taxpayers is going to be around to pay for all the stuff everyone wants/needs. (Basic economics!)

Was that why you had children? To create future taxpayers?

I suggest you try the ‘what was life like under Labour’ or any of The GE threads. Apparently it was a nirvana. Which is a surprise to a lot of us who were graduating, working and starting families during that time.