Is there money to do what Labour wants to do?

Some posters on here need to read the post about Tories being magnanimous in defeat. Doesn’t seem it on here. Just sour grapes, quite sad really.

We’re already in debt, huge amounts.

This

I would fuck off gladly! Thank God we ensured we could be movable. Same for my kids who learnt several languages and are well travelled. We have been exploring for a while now and with the exception of Barcelona and California everywhere else considered first world is most appealing than here.

Forgotten the PFI were still paying off at something like 550%.

I tell my (incredibly bright) kids all the time to think globally. It’s absolutely ridiculous to talk of accepting high taxation for developing world infrastructure and crumbling public services. We are also to accept a police force who ignores gang violence and widespread theft but comes down very hard on being able to distinguish a man from a woman biologically.

if you are telling me Labour wiill be able to find a way to fairly tax that enables a rebuilding of the country without losing high value companies and individuals I am absolutely here for it.

Well, say they'd pay more tax... as is already evident on this thread they have no intention of doing so, despite being given helpful links to do so because they're only that one voice, paying in the darkness. Go on those posters! Be that change! Pay away!

Yep. Let’s continue with the brain drain, don’t let the door hit you in the way out. Wonderful! Slow hand clap.

Ah right, 'if you don't like being taxed highly and paying for those who could but don't work or contribute, fuck off then'?

My parents have already done this. Most inheritance tax can be avoided with the help of a good lawyer. My parents worked for every single penny. They’d rather use £20 notes to light the fires than give it to greasy Starmer fir the work-shy and feckless.

So many people are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of the middle class/higher middle class income bracket getting taxed more. The VAT on private schools threads has people salivating with excitement. It’s just the usual race to the bottom on here.

Yes, of course better money management is the answer. However, the influx of people using resources and benefits for being on minimum wages if not cap considerably would be impossible. We can’t continue helping as much as we did. Wrong party in government for that.

This doesn’t surprise me. I think Hammond and Hunt have been giving them reason to celebrate for several years. They must think we have a self-destruct wish.

I know one of the Directors of Economic Development for a UAE emirate, they are absolutely delighted with the Labour government. Its helping them attract substantial investment which would have gone into the UK. It started having an effect on investment in the UAE last year!

Yes, Brown changed the rules on PFI (PPP) to enable many more PFI schemes. In the 1990s under Major it was highly selective and by exception - in the 1980s under Thatcher (and before her) Treasury rules prevented PPP schemes which probably led to more privatisations than would otherwise have happened. What happened after Brown changed the rules was a massive deliberate policy change for expansion of PFI usage, civil servants didnt use PFI's appropriately.

It circumstances with good contractual arrangements, PFIs make a huge amount of sense - multiple European countries (sometimes cities) have PPP (PFI) schemes for water systems management for instance. What Brown did was to expand PFIs to stuff that should never have been privately financed and then on top of that didnt have the skills in Treasury to appropriately manage them, the early contracts were overseen by often inexperienced civil servants and were overly generous to the private sector. Towards the end of the Labour government in 2010, the PFI schemes had become better managed (eg new PFI contracts/procurements (not old ones)) were properly managed but the reputation was in tatters due to the awful early ones eg Metronet etc.

Good use of PPPs with appropriate risk transfer saves the government money, bad use does not. Ultimately where PPPs save money is when a private sector company is better able to manage project risk and is more efficient than the state at delivering outcomes. If governments are efficient, good at managing complex projects then PPPs make less sense.

The country would be much better off if much of the infrastructure which had been privatised had been let on 25 year PPPs, through specialist sector vehicles with hypothecated user pay revenue models however rules prevented this in the 1980s and economists thought comparative regulation would increase efficiency and drive down costs (which it did for the first 10-15 years). Interestingly regulators are now trying to crush returns in privatised companies and effectively make the companies run PPP competitions on new major capex projects.

Well you can resolve that if you are concerned. The state opening of parliament is still some days away.

This wealth is very difficult to tax. Almost no one in that wealth bracket is British. Your yacht owner probably floats between tax havens most of the time and has no tax liabilities in the U.K.

And those who are move to tax havens and become non-domiciled in the U.K. so that they are only taxed on their U.K. income. The Sunak government put in a taper arrangement for how long someone can be non-dom for abd Starmer has promised to axe it. The concept is out of date and needs to go. It is a hang-over from the colonial era so that British subjects continued to pay tax in the British colony they came from, not the U.K. But there aren’t that many of them and we are told they being in a lot of investment. We shall have to see what the consequence of axing the status is.

One of our biggest issues at present is that Hint has increased corporation tax to 25%. That’s higher than Sweden, Denmark, Italy and most European economies. It’s double Ireland’s and the same as France, which is a notoriously sclerotic place to do business. Plus, we don’t have some of the world’s best skiing, vineyards and a Mediterranean climate, so we have to be more competitive in other ways if we want to prosper.

We have a friend (EU National who moved here in 1995) who emigrated to the UAE to grow his business. Low corporation tax, low red tape etc means he now has no employs 70 people, lives on the Palm and has a holiday house near Lake Como. Of course, Dubai let people move there easily, but they never get permanent residency and are never a burden on the state. They are guests making the most of an opportunity. It works for his business, but we lost all the tax revenue paid by all his employees and his business.

Interesting thank you. Accountant yesterday said different but a quick google tells me you are correct.

Still a bit concerned that farming in hand won’t be protected as it has been.

I was sent this and eye rolled when i saw it BUT
https://x.com/GMB/status/1809114873894228261?s=08

I cant help but think steve baker is 💯 on the money

Labour's credit boom and fiscal policies leading to the finanicial crisis.
This combined with restricted building and zoning leasing to soaring house prices locking generations out of home ownership
Labour's involvement in an immoral war we were unilaterally signed up for and the illegal torture that followed.

It can easily be argued these all created perfect hothousing conditions in various ways for extreme view points we see today.

Israel v palestine
Hatred for private education
Hatred for those high earners who dont feel wealthy
Hatred for boomers
Hatred for workshy millenials who spent their money on avocado toast
Resentment towards those who "chose a life on benefits"
Anger at the world and others in general.

A lot of this is blair brown "mandy" & co chickens coming home to roost.
Dark and grim times lay ahead.

Sounds like you are structured incorrectly. There shouldn’t be SDLT. Personally I would not be too concerned if you are farming in-hand as opposed to an agricultural landlord.

No, they don’t - but they’ve said that openly, it’s not a secret.

They’ve been clear that to do what they want will need economic growth to return to the economy. Without it, there’ll have to be tax rises somewhere.

The state either does that, takes more taxes or prints more money. The problem was not the idea behind Labour’s PPP. It was their stupidity in signing up for contracts that would sting the public sector. The deals are a long way from a mortgage, which would have been a more sensible approach. They are jaw droppingly awful. It’s incomprehensible that they were ever agreed to.

He has said he won’t raise income tax, so it will have to come from so-called stealth tax rises. The trouble is we have a lot of these already and they do all ultimately impact the cost of living and levels of disposable income.

A few interesting election observations (not my own):

1. Labour’s vote share: 33.7%!!!!!!!
2. Labour’s vote share increased by only 1.6% since 2019 😯😯😯. Further analysis shows the only place Labour’s vote share increased was in Scotland. It stayed level in England and went down in Wales.
3. In terms of votes cast, Starmer won 6% fewer than Jeremy Corbyn did in 2019, and 25% fewer than Corbyn did in 2017.
4. Lib Dem’s seat share change was vast compared with their vote share change, which increased modestly, due to tactical voting against the Conservatives.

At the last election people voted tactically to keep Labour out and many Labour Party members complained. This time the roles are reversed. This is why I’m actually in favour of FPTP. It is ruthless. It forces parties to get their shit together and appeal to a broad church before the election, rather than a rabble of different parties, including extremist parties, arguing over who will be part of a coalition after the election.

@MissingMoominMamma I thought one of the biggest holes in hospital budgets today is servicing the eye watering interest on private finance initiatives agreed to last time Labour was in power. Can anyone more knowledgeable comment?

The problem with the state not having its own money to improve infrastructure is that it needs to borrow it from private sources. Which it can of course, a bit like a mortgage. But there has to be something in it for the private companies…

We’re possibly a bit different. In a family farming business when traditionally the land gets handed over IHT free at death due to Agricultural Property Relief. We’re concerned that there will be changes to APR and BPR so are looking into the parents gifting it now. Even if they don’t make 7 years it will have started the clock ticking. Downside is the gift would be due SDLT but at the moment we still think it’s worth it.