To wonder what could Starmer do, to turn things around?

@PocketSand

The government made it clear that THEY were not increasing tax/NI for working people....The budget increased tax/NI for employers not employees.

Not quite. The increase in employers NIC has hit lots of workers who work via agencies, umbrellas or their own limited companies if caught by IR35 where employers NIC comes out of their "day/hourly rate", so it has hit a lot of "workers" simply due to the way they're paid. There is no additional cost to the "employer" for such workers - it's ALL borne by the worker themselves. Just another area where the politicians havn't thought it through properly. It's noteworthy that those same people were some of the group of the 3 million excluded from Covid support because they weren't "traditional" employees eligible for furlough, nor "traditional" self employed eligible for SEISS. So basically screwed over a second time!

I do think a government needs to focus on pensioners, pensions and the benefits they get. As more and more people reach pension age and live longer once they are in it, a lot of the things pensioners get have become unsustainable in the volume they are now handed out.
This will not be popular because there is still a lot of romance (for want of a better word) about pensioners who fought in the war (you see it on every thread about pensioners, when in reality even the oldest pensioners around today would not have fought in the war but been children at the time).
On my list to look at would be:
Pensions triple lock - unique to pensions, this should be scrapped and rises brought in line with other benefit rises;
Free prescriptions for over-60s. This makes no sense in view of today's retirement ages. Free prescriptions should be limited to lower-income pensioners only, although this might cost more than it saves
Free bus passes - nice to have but we can't afford it
Free TV licence for over-75s - as above
And lastly - and this is a controversial one - I think pension credit should start to be phased out as people reach retirement age. I am 58 and I have had ample opportunity, warning and information about employee and private pensions, and those who have chosen not to take these up should not be subsidised by those who have. Keep it for those who get it now - we don't want another WASPI outcry - but give ample warning and start to phase it out.
We need to think more about the young, who seem to be ignored at best and shafted at worst every which way they turn.

Perhaps before you introduce taxation on profits it is necessary to show that the alternative does not exist or does not work.

The government made it clear that THEY were not increasing tax/NI for working people.

The budget increased tax/NI for employers not employees.

The employers chose to pass on increases to employees (and the rest of us through increased costs) in order to retain profits (inflated in recent years).

There has been a huge increase in inequality and profitability in recent years. Combined with an increase of state funded in work benefits. Low wages propped up by in work benefits that increase profit. High rents paid to private landlords by the state.

What more proof is required that taxing profit is the only just way of reducing state expenditure and inequality?

The standard pensioner claim is that "they paid in all their lives".

Well they did. But they didn't pay enough. Otherwise we wouldn't be 2 trillion in debt. Mainly due to things like under taxation and excessive COVID spending. The COVID spending mainly occurred to support the older in society.

The thing is there are a lot of poor pensioners out there. But there are a lot of rich ones too. The easiest way to increase funding is through inheritance taxes.

That way no low income pensioner is going to suffer.

But if the government implements an increase in inheritance tax everyone screams "a tax on death!" and it appears to boil the blood even of those who aren't actually going to get taxed (very few estates actually pay IHT at the moment).

This is why the country generally is screwed. And the only way we will be able to reduce the debt levels is either through growth (which the government at the moment seems determined to stifle at every possibility) or through spending cuts.

Because no one actually wants to pay any more tax. Even if it is after they are dead.

Just putting this here:

The International Monetary Fund has upgraded its forecast for UK growth this year in its biannual assessment of the global economy, while taking a swipe at plans by Donald Trump’s incoming US administration for the potentially destabilising effect of large-scale tax cuts, import tariffs and weaker regulations.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/17/imf-upgrades-uk-growth-forecast-and-takes-swipe-at-trump-plans?CMP=ShareAndroidAppOther

They HAVEN'T "paid their fair share already" though! It's ongoing! Otherwise billionaires would have paid their share in a month or two and be done! And fair enough if the threshold needs to be made a bit higher.

They have paid their fair share already. I am not talking about pensioners on 50k, I am concerned about pensioners on 12k or so. Those just over the pension credit threshold. There are people who resent pensioners getting 12K a year.

What funded benefits are you thinking of? Bus passes? Only funded for actual journeys taken. Free prescriptions? 95% of all prescriptions in England are filled free of charge, they’re not all going to pensioners. I can’t think of anything else. If you can I’d love to know about them.

NI only applies to income from employment though, for everyone. If we start applying it to one benefit, then maybe it should be applied to others. Child benefit, for example?

I agree though that if someone over pension age is working, they should pay NI, which they don't currently.

But they don't pay NIC, which is just another tax. I agree with others than NIC needs to be scrapped and income tax increased instead to level the playing field a bit.

You look at the data already held in various Gov.uk databases and base your eligibility criteria on information that's already known. Far better and easier than creating a new criteria that's going to need a building full of pen pushers to administer.

Hence why I suggested using the higher rate tax threshold £50k or the £100k threshold where the personal allowance is tapered away. Then you can use the HMRC database to determine who is eligible and who isn't, as HMRC already have that information - they need it to charge H/R tax on people with income over £50k and to remove the personal allowance for those with incomes over £100k.

Don't re invent the wheel, work with what they've already got.

I can kind of understand why Labour removed the WFA for those not on pension credit as it's very easy to administer as they can link it to the pension credit database with minimal administration. Of course, there's extra admins needed to deal with the influx of new claimants who never previously claimed pension credit despite being eligible, hey ho! Win some, lose some!

Ridiculous comment. Theres a pretty wide margin between paying their fair share (like every other group is expected to) and "freezing to death for the common good"

Yes of course they do @PandoraSox as they should if their income is over the threshold but they don't pay NI. And they get lots of funded benefits that plenty don't need.

By freezing to death for the common good?

Millions of pensioners pay income tax. I don't know why people think they don't.

Cancel free prescriptions and in fact all OAP benefits except (other than pensions) for those not on low incomes

But all that costs money to administer. Simetimes it is cheaper to have blanket benefits. For example, in Scotland and Wales there are no prescription charges for anyone at all.

@Thegoatliesdownonbroadway I don't really understand your thinking here. You think the elderly should be the one group who are exempt from having to help fund the changes needed? Why?

The young aren't young forever. They will be the old one day. Perhaps we can scrap the old age pension and the old can charge the young to use the infrastructure which the old have built.

This is very true. My mum was one of seven, born 1906 to 1918. Five of them were over 90 and two over 100 when they died. Her grandfather was born in 1851 and died aged 93.

I think they need to get rid of national insurance and increase taxes across the board to make up for it. There's no sense in landlords / pensioners/ anyone else who gets their income from non-work means paying less.
Cancel free prescriptions and in fact all OAP benefits except (other than pensions) for those not on low incomes. Then that money needs to be invested in social care. If we could clear the hospitals of people who have no medical reasons to be there then we could stop people from dying in corridors, or while waiting for an ambulance that never comes (because it's stuck outside a and e and can't offload it's patient because there are no beds as they're taken up by people with social care needs)

I remember my great aunt and all her cronies, in the 1970s, all in their 80s. I think life expectancy if you make it through childhood has always been in the 70 to 80 range. What has changed is a huge reduction in childhood mortality. Which is great, particularly since we need more young people.

He needs to start representing the working classes - not big business and those on benefits. He doesn't need to spend more he needs to stop the exploitation of the public sector by big business. Get academy chains and private exam boards for example out of schools. Stop private drug developers being able to slightly alter a cheap drug, patent it and sell it back to the NHS at a huge cost. There are far too many snouts in the trough!

Completely agree. I’d love to see a couple of Reform councils, it would finish them off for good.

I think it might be a good thing if Reform took control of a council or two. Let's test how well they run things.

But I think they have little chance of winning overall control of any council in reality.

@BIossomtoes

"Very convenient for them. It saves them a drubbing. I suspect a number of those would go LibDem or hung."

Actually on current polling a lot of them would go to Reform which neither the Tories or Labour want.

LibDems are struggling a bit poll wise.