The UK has borrowed too much money, has a massive debt - £105 billion goes on paying our debt interest

More to do with the claim that one government can "salt the earth" for an incoming government.

This is not possible as parliament is sovereign and can undo any changes put in place by a previous government. Thus when politicians tell us stuff like "Britain will never be part of an EU superstate" they are lying, as they simply don't have the power to bind the country in that way in perpetuity.

The only situation you might argue where changes are not reversible is for situations where there is a second party that is not subject to sovereign constraints like international treaties where there are no exit clauses (very rare probably for this very reason) or the process becomes irreversible through practicality.

Yes. They should move.

Would you rather we went on with the current bonkers council tax and stamp duty, or do you want a fair land tax system? I want the latter (although I’d be paying 3 x more a year in land tax). Your gran having the stress of moving shouldn’t stand in the way of implementing a fair tax system. It’s laughable that you should think so.

He and Sunak were trying to grow the economy by reducing tax to incentivise people to work, to start businesses, etc. There were green shoots of growth appearing.

RR killed all that with her NIC hike!

We are approaching the time when the IMF will get called in.

Then the cuts to services and benefits will really begin.

Err yes! Most governmental debt is relatively short term and needs to be repaid at the end of the term, to be funded and replaced by new loans/debt. Lenders will only lend if the return/risk/reward works for them. Hence why it's so important that the country works WITH its lenders and the international money markets, and tries to maintain the highest credit rating possible. When our credit rating falls, the interest rate we have to pay to attract new loans/debt increases! Every government has to try to keep the international money markets on side by at least trying to persuade them that we're in control of our country's finances and can service/repay the debt. Rachel tried to satisfy the country's lenders by her self imposed fiscal rules (as did Gordon Brown), but when she has failed to meet them, just months after she created those rules, the money markets will be getting spooked, so she'll have to announce some pretty spectacular changes later this week to try to persuade them that she knows what she's doing and will start to get the nation's finances back under control in terms of cutting the deficit. Remember the deficit is the yearly shortfall, which adds to the total debt, which is currently approaching a whopping £3 trillion. That's enormous, being decades of accumulated deficits.

In the last fifty years, the country has only been in surplus for five years, the last time being 2000/2001.

We got away with it to some extent when interest rates were at historical lows, but now they're increased back to historical average levels, we're screwed. I remember loads of posters on her and other fora a few years ago saying we should borrow to invest because interest rates were so low. They've now gone quiet, because the money borrowed back then at low interest rates is now being loaned at much higher interest rates as we couldn't pay it back.

What other bad behaviour are you going to tax?

You are happy for people to lose their home and their support network?

Moving at an advanced age is very stressful.

I think Jeremy Hunt knew exactly what he was doing. Knew the Tories would lose, so left a bad situation for Labour, in the hope they would have to make unpopular decisions and give the Tories a chance in 2029 of at least having enough seats to deny a second majority for Labour.

The real damage was that the amount needed in 2020 and 2021 to support the economy was much greater than should have been the case, given the dubious Covid procurement, things such as Eat Out to Help out, cheap bus fares and above all that furlough payments could have been at least a third less had there been a prompt response in March and September 2020.

Yes of course. Sorry to be blunt but it’s true that many pensioners are living in houses too big for their needs in this country. We need to tax behaviour that is bad for society. It is bad for society not to make most efficient use of housing stock.

This is how all governments function. It is not like a household budget.

You want to tax housing?

There are so many house owners who are cash poor, many of the elderly.

Do you want them to lose their homes? Moving is costly and difficult. Also, why should they have to lose their homes?

What about council housing, who will paymthe tax there?

I agree with that.

When people move there is a cascade of spending. Estate agent and solicitor fees. Builders, painters and decorators. New furniture and appliances. This is money churning round in the economy generating economic activity. It is better for this money to be say spent in the economy that reside in inflating values of bricks and mortar. Stamp duty dissuades people from moving and therefore lowers this activity. You are also basically betting that the reduced stamp duty raised can be spent better into the economy by the government through taxation - a tall order since governments are notoriously rubbish at doing anything.

We need a tax free rate for housing, maybe 200K, then all value above that taxed and doubles for second homes and landlords. No one needs a second home. Housing in this country is partly in crisis because people with money keep buying up property and that needs to be heavily penalised if we all want a place to live.

I like your delivery tax idea.

Stamp duty and council tax need to be binned and a tax of 0.5-0.7% of house value needs to be introduced instead. Stamp duty has been shown to be incredibly bad for growth.

The thing is, if you tax a business more, that almost certainly goes on to the consumer, not the business. If the business cannot operate with the increased level of taxation it goes bust.

There is an easy way to tax companies like Amazon more. That is to put a delivery tax on them, so every parcel that is delivered to a UK address gets a tax imposed on it. That is unavoidable. However, the public would see that as a tax on them, not a tax on Amazon and probably go nuts about it. So the government won't have the bottle to implement it.

I'm not sure that it is possible to get everyone in the UK paying more tax. The bottom end is taxed out. It is the middle ground where there are opportunities for taxation. Probably I would say on housing. Housing is a great way to tax people as it is immovable and the asset stays in the UK.

I don’t disagree. I used it only to counter the argument that Hunt was a competent chancellor.

IMF bailout incoming...?

Agreed. We wouldn’t be in this mess if both main parties hadn’t been promising unaffordable tax cuts in the manifestos. Does anyone want a tax cut more than they want better public services? £5 a month better off, or an ambulance within 5 mins if you are having a heart attack? You’d take the ambulance every time. We’re not fools. Stop treating us as idiots.

Yep, labour could have reversed the NI cut if it was so bad and unfunded. As they did with other tory policies they didn't like.
Instead, they've chosen to go after the elderly and disabled rather than admit that the budget was a massive failure.

Why didn't Labour promise to undo it as part of their manifesto then if it was so bad ?

Part of the reason they are in the position they are in now is because they wouldn't be honest about taxation and spending.

Now they are in a position where a Labour government is cutting services and benefits to the vulnerable because they have to operate within their own election promises.

Labour are effectively operating as a Tory government at the moment.

Liz Truss was gone within days.

Rachel Reeves is still wrecking the economy.

Why was he promising tax cuts then? And why did he implement an unfunded NI cut? He certainly understood actions have consequences when he salted the earth for the incoming government.

It surprises me - UK is definately richer than Venezuela or Greece. It has looted other countries for centuries It has trillions in assets and treasure. Why not sell some of these?

And then they would just move their headquarters to another country, and probably stop employing the thousands of people that they employ in the UK.

Yep borrowing for that wasn’t a good idea. And NI increases are a tax on work which is a bad idea when you really only have growth to get things going. That’s halved now.

Anyway all you can do is see what they’ll do next. A gov that didn’t get the importance of the private sector wasn’t a good idea, but there you go. Reeves it is.