Would you pay more tax to boost defence spending

To put this in context our military spending and personnel has been in an almost unseen decline for years...charts here:

www.ft.com/content/36f47240-7c0e-11e6-ae24-f193b105145e

Yes the cost to the Govt is huge, over 10bn each and every year... for almost zero return.. thats money that could have gone into Defence.... thanks Hunt/Sunak.

So an 10bn extra for defence spend isn't welcome? would take us above the Tories target of 2.5% of GDP.

Whats your solution?

Oh and on your knowledge of UK deep ports, its Falmouth

Ha! The man whose wife has been creaming off millions (yes more than one) in USAID to teach bewildered Afghan children about Marcel Duchamp….
Another one with a hand on the cookie jar.

Well £10 billion would be enough to dig the last four miles in North Cornwall so that the River Tamar joins up with the sea to "Make Cornwall An Island" .

We can then have better control of immigrants coming (legal and illegal) in from the likes of far flung places like London. Failing to integrate, buying up second homes and eating their "foreign" food like avocados on toast and hummus.

Cornwalls never been "Great", for Cornwall it might be better to spend the money on a motorway to Make Cornwall A Passable Place to Have a Holiday Again.

Reversing those NI cuts would make perfect sense, it was stupid not to do it when they first took office. It was blatantly obvious that cut was an only made to salt the earth.

Yep - £10bn would go a long way on infrastructure. Revitalise ship building. Dig a deep water port into St Ives for a submarine base and Make Cornwall Great Again.

What's not to like 😄

The LibDems have proposed a Digital Services Tax, the Military cannot spend a large increase in funding, just a few billion at a time is enough... if we rebuild manufacturing at the same time.

Reeves raised 30 billion in ONE budget, raising an extra 4 or 5 billion above any growth in GDP, cannot be beyond the wit of man surely?

As i said earlier, reduce the tax benefits of ISA's... say with a limit on the total held, 50 or 75k? wouldn't affect the average saver, the rest above this, could be taxed at 10%... so still a tax efficient benefit.

Hunt's NI cuts cost the Govt over £10bn each year..... £10 billion invested in the UK manufacturing base would lead to skills, more tax take, less benefits, more spend in the local area, extra taxes, revitalise former industrial heartlands.

It’s already attractive. The competition for officer training for all the services is insane. Salaries are excellent and the pension is non contributory.

The recruiting challenge is in enlisted ranks, not officers. Here anyone who serves for two years or more qualifies for G.I. Bill benefits, which includes university fees and expenses for further education, low cost home mortgages and low interest loans to start a business. It’s all designed to give soldiers a good start in life when they get out of the service.

The military pensions here are non contributory too, but you need 20 years of service to qualify.

Yes I'd say that was true here too. A way out of poverty and a life of excitement and structure.

@trainermush , 100% I would and anyone who would not is a fool. It will be your children conscripted into a war of horrors one day if we aren’t sufficiently strong militarily.

It’s already attractive. The competition for officer training for all the services is insane. Salaries are excellent and the pension is non contributory.

In the U.S. it’s seen as a path to a good career and the middle class for poor people.

I was gobsmacked when I learned about how few benefits the UK offers service members. You need something like our G. I. Bill to make it an attractive option for young people.

T'was always thus.

You're on mumsnet, you're not more willing because you have children. Most of us do. You're scared and you're buying into your.own fear. Get your head out of the news and spend your money on quality time with your kids.

The only possible issue is the inequality that could be caused by students from poorer backgrounds being more likely to sign up, or possibly even feeling pressured to.

Already happening.

https://jobs.army.mod.uk/regular-army/what-you-get/bursaries-scholarships/

I wonder that the real defense needed is less about physical power or conscription and more about defending against economic power/media/people placed in strategic positions. Is there more than one way to take over a country/neutralise it? How much of everything is a ruse or distraction?

I think that's an innovative way to look at the problem. I think lots of young people would sign up as reservists if they were supported to access engineering, cyber security, medical careers etc without paying fees.

Though where will the money come from? I can only think of social security spending, and higher taxes on leisure/hospitality.

Stopping the boats? 😂

Yes agree, those reasons aren't really it but this is correct too

I think we're going to have to pay more - and that we won't have much of a choice about it until the next general election. Though I'm worried Reform will do well then, whatever version & name it takes at that point.

Though where will the money come from? I can only think of social security spending, and higher taxes on leisure/hospitality.

What a grim time.

We didn’t. Politically it needed to stay in the hands of someone from the EU to avoid the appearance that the US and the Brits were dominating the alliance. So Stoltenberg stayed in place.