Do you trust the state to protect and provide for you?

Not at all. I can choose different patterns of working in the UK. I can also choose to live in other countries with a welfare state which don't screw over those who fund it. Most of the EU, in fact.

The mother isn't wrong. They're panicking and backtracking.

All of which preclude living and working in a country with a welfare state.

Your first link indicates that the mother is mistaken and the second applies only to Scotland.

I have many options.

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/boy-denied-treatment-nhs-hospital-private-school-kingston-richmond-b1231805.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14813331/amp/Suicide-risk-young-daughter-refused-NHS-mental-health-counselling-private-school.html

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/sick-private-school-pupils-denied-access-education

It's the last straw, tbh.

If you want to continue living in a country with a welfare state you have no choice about funding it.

Oh get off your ridiculous , self-righteous high horse.

Your relative and others like him are obviously fully funded by the welfare state.

That is perfectly compatible with saying that the welfare state has to benefit everyone in society.

That if you disproportionately extract almost all the funding for the welfare state from a tiny proportion of society - and don't even let them benefit from it - they won't continue to fund it.

Small tip: maligning those who fund it - as you just did - doesn't make them particularly disposed to continue to fund it either.

Do you and your relative want a welfare state to continue? Then start acting like it.

Sounds like you live in South Africa like me. Middle class and upwards pay for everything twice. Can’t trust the government for anything so we private school our kids, pay for private medical insurance, live in gated estates and pay for private security, have to have a car because public transport is unsafe, have to have solar because electricity is unreliable… and we pay taxes.

And this is all in pursuit of a more socialist system of equality.

They’re not denied the services they’re paying for. They’re entitled to a state education for their children, free healthcare, in fact every non means tested service. What they don’t get is child benefit above a very generous threshold or subsidised childcare which only applies for a short period of most working lives.

Because that’s the way a civilised society operates.

We need to learn history. Do you know what happened in Russia is 1917-23? They also decided to take wealth from wealthy and redistribute to poor via state structures. It wasn't pretty. We aren't there (yet, Corbyn would lead us there pronto), but extreme taxation and vilification of those better of is not that dissimilar.

Do you realise that current level of taxation is the highest we've ever had? and that it's only in recent years those top tax payers are denied services they are paying for?

It depends which state services you need. Surely that’s obvious?

£40k income is about break-even for covering state services, which is conveniently close to the higher tax rate. Like all tax-payers, you recieved your own education (your DC's counts against his imaginary balance sheet, not yours) and will get your own pension.

Tell that to my relative with downs syndrome and the 60,000 others like him who cannot work or 'contribute to the social contract', ie be good little productive cogs in the capitalist machine.

I suppose we should take away his PIP and Universal Credit benefits and gas him, as the Nazis did to over 280,000 learning disabled Germans in the 1930s, to save taxpayers funding the £34 billion a year that is spent supporting vulnerable adults with learning disabilities?

Then you might be able to afford a few more batches of avocado on organic tuscan artisan bread for breakfast every day.

Your kid did go to prison though didn't he? That's not cheap...)

Wtf?

How do you work that one out? The only thing I ever took out was my son’s education, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t using all the tax I paid during the 18 years he was at school, particularly given that it was 30% basic rate + 9% NI for most of them.

Determination of net contribution is much more nuanced than just tax band. A single, healthy childless person will be a net contributor at a much lower point than someone with children and a chronic illness.

I don't rely on the state. I used to expect the police to show up in an emergency / investigate a murder but no longer do. Thrilled for the Jaguar air tag couple, it is the way to go. That and U4HD CCTV all over your property. I will ge leaving if/ when Rachel from Accounts comes for my privately earned and invested pension as I don't have 20 years to reearn it. I would prefer a Hong Kong style approach to crime, & civil behaviour expectations. I can understand why educated young people are leaving the country / not doing babies with no hope of having their own home, keeping a fair % of their earning,never retiring or the police actually showing up when they need them.

I doubt worked hard just so you could pay more tax though? You thought it was worth it, on balance, for your personal circumstances. Other people might decide it isn't worth it.
(Your kid did go to prison though didn't he? That's not cheap...)

You got a pretty good deal, by the way. 20 years as a net contributor, 30 years not.

Bet you never paid 62% marginal tax rate.

And your children weren't denied medical care 'because you're too rich'.

In your opinion. I disagree.

The social contract has limits.

They have been breached.

Why the fuck should we work harder to pay for all this for other people, when we don't get any of it ourselves?

Because that’s the way a civilised society operates. I worked for the best part of 50 years, 20 of them at the higher tax rate. I had one child to be educated, neither of us used the NHS, no benefits were claimed and if I need a care home obviously my house will be sold to pay for it. Do you know what? I don’t care because it’s the price of being part of a society that looks after the least well off.

It's not just because we have private healthcare and use private schools. More and more of the state services we disproportionately pay for is being denied us through means testing.

We don’t get funded preschool childcare (childcare we need to get those salaries) - in fact we're actually screwed for even more to cover those free hours that everyone except us gets - because nurseries increase hourly cost to subsidise the under-funded government ones.

We don't even get child benefit. We don't get WFA now.

We've just learned that our children are denied NHS care because they go to private schools.

And if they're long-term ill in hospital, they won't be entitled to hospital education services.

They won't get access to full student loans.

If we lose our jobs, we get no safety net. Despite contributing £10s of thousands each year, we'll get no support that recognises our existing financial commitments, to protect us from losing our mortgaged homes and help us get back on our feet... back to contributing more £10s of thousands in tax.

The houses we've spent our lives paying for will be sold when we're elderly to pay for the same care homes other people get for free - in fact the state will be paying less than we are privately: depleting our life savings even more quickly to further subsidise the state

There's even talk about the state pensions we've explicitely built up over our whole working lives being denied us.

Why the fuck should we work harder to pay for all this for other people, when we don't get any of it ourselves?

Link?

4% of earners are on 100k or more

it’s hardly a problem for the normal everyday person

That is crazy.

Seeing those figures really brings home that we are really being screwed in terms of our wages not rising in line with inflation and some tax thresholds being frozen.