To feel like I'm not sure where I sit politically anymore, and to worry about it.

Can I recommend you all google the SDP and look at their policies. Also look for some podcasts and YT videos with their leader William Clouston. I was politically homeless but was relieved to find them. Really common sense policies. They don’t believe TWAW and have a sensible strategy to control immigration.

@HarkerandBarkerthank you for your well written post - very interesting

This is exactly how I feel! I have never resented paying my taxes in the past, but now I begrudge it because I feel that it’s being spent unwisely.

I’d agree, it does seem unfair. It’s such an adversarial system too. The council budget is screwed as paying for expensive placements so can’t afford to support others. So they then go through tribunal process and get an expensive placement.

The thing is no one wants there child / relative to be the one to go without so they fight for all they are entitled to.

This country is one of the richest in the world. The problem is not lack of money but the unfair way it is distributed. It is short-sighted to extort money from the poor by paying poverty wages because if they were paid more they could kickstart the economy by buying more. The greed of the company owners is also the seed of their own demise, a slump and the inability of people to buy their products.

The people who work in jobs paying poverty wages are subsidising the very rich*.The last Conservative Government enabled the super rich to steal our Nationalised Industries from us - Railways, Water, Electricity, Gas, Railways etc and enabled the corrupt owners to pay out millions in dividends while polluting our rivers, over charging us, running down our National Health Service etc etc while squirrelling their ill gotten profits away off shore in tax havens.

In contrast to the media narrative, 81% of UK millionaires agree with the statement that it is patriotic to pay a fair share of tax, according to a poll published on 5 June 2025 by Patriotic Millionaires UK. 80% of UK millionaires said they would support a wealth tax of 2% on wealth over £10 million.

*The 'Christians' amongst them don't seem to be worried about Christ's declaration that 'it is easier of a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.'

Is Charles, Head of the Church of England lying awake at night worrying about going to Hell because of his enormous wealth? He might start by waiving the rents he gets from schools and hospitals and waiving the tax exemptions he enjoys.

We need to use the skills of immigrants/asylum seekers to boost the wealth of this country instead paying them a pittance to not work. We have a desperately low birth rate and a shortage of skilled workers. We need to train up both our young and the largely ambitious ( by definition) immigrants to boost our economy. Many countries allow immigrants or asylum seekers to work while they await a decision instead of leaving them languishing in desperate poverty for years. So should we.

The workers (the wealth makers of this country) should be welcoming immigrants (and often well qualified) asylum seekers as they will fill jobs we can't fill ourselves. They will boost our economy which can't manage with an ever ageing population and one which is suffering from long term effects of Covid and a poorly functioning Health Service.

This is an interesting moral / ethical discussion which needs to be had.

It is incredibly difficult though - as for many families, these schools make a huge difference.

@Bumpitybumper yup my point exactly, a child in my family is 15, can’t read, write or take themselves to the toilet. In a specialist school with all the help I mentioned in my post. For what? They’d be just as happy in a day centre or even at home and the academic outcome would be the same.

The specific reason for tax increases at present seems to be to… give more benefits to a growing group of workless people. Which… I don’t think will land very well…

I think this has been a huge contributor to the problems that the UK is facing now though. This generation of young people are the ones who grew up with austerity, they watched their mums struggling to pay for everything, lived in too small mouldy homes with no heat, relied on food banks, went to school hungry and now people are asking why more young people than ever are claiming they have disabilities. Why aren't they engaged and happy to give back to a society that didn't care about them when they needed help?

A third of children are growing up in poverty. There is significant under investment in schools. England has the highest university costs in Europe. Children growing up in poverty with no investment in their future education and people see a bright and happy future ahead for the UK?

Then you have the disabled, why so many, why don't they work, why aren't they engaged happy productive members of society? The same thing. Cutting supports. NHS unable to cope so people aren't getting the right treatment on time. High levels of poverty means stress, inadequate housing conditions, inadequate nutrition.

In short austerity doesn't work. People can look now and blame immigrants, blame Labour but this has been bubbling away for years. You reap what you sow and for many years the government didn't sow anything.

There's never been one party that all my ideals align with, and realistically for most people that is pretty rare. I think you are now in the same boat as most people and you need to find the party that you can find compromises with.

I always find it baffling when I talk politics with people and say I support xxxxx and people respond with "but how, what about their position on...." As if we can all find a party where every single policy is in alignment with all of our personal beliefs

Not to mention £100k per year for individual children to be educated at some specialist schools. Almost all of these children are children that will never feasibly be able to work or be economically active. Surely there is another, less expensive way to deal with this? For reference, the state pays the same amount to educate 13 students in a regular state school.

I think the issue is there seems to be bottomless pits in some areas, a mismanagement of money and then others who get FA or like you say, have services cut. Some kids with SEN are getting taxis to school with chaperones, 2:1 or even 3:1 in specialist schools, respite over weekends and school holidays, Mums driving a mobility car, living comfortably off the benefits. All whilst another non verbal child is fighting for a PT TA and is in a mainstream class. It’s so unevenly spread. That’s where the frustration builds in.

During her tenure, Theresa May slashed the police force by about 20%. Even if Sunak hired more police to make up for that, the numbers remain lower per capita than they were before the Tories came to power in 2010.

I’ve never understood why Theresa May did that. However crime has been increasing so why hasn’t Labour increased the police force to deal with it?

I think lots of people feel the same OP.

A sane, centrist party is so badly needed.

I have felt politically homeless for many years. My vote is used either tactically (to keep the worst out) or who I disagree with least.

Then you need to accept we need massive social care and SEN education reform. Because that's the biggest drain on council tax. And I'm fed up with everything else being cut to the bone (leisure centres, bin collection etc) to pay for what seems like millions of pounds of taxis to schools.

I think most people feel the same. There was a belief in the past that if we all paid a reasonable amount of tax then there should be enough money to pay for reasonably good public services for everyone and to support the most vulnerable in society. The old, disabled and those seeking asylum.

The economy hasn't really grown in the past few decades and the welfare burden has exploded. There is a huge gap between the amount of money the country needs to meet everyone's expectations and how much tax we can reasonably raise without hugely detrimenting our economy. It's time we got real and has reasoned conversations about the level of support we can offer through the welfare state to different groups. It will be distressing and have unpleasant consequences but so does the alternative... Sleepwalking into a society where work no longer pays and our towns and cities are decimated.

I feel the same OP, the gaps are widening between the better off and the most vulnerable.

I feel in many ways we’re becoming lawless - there’s always been some groups that the police weren’t as motivated to bring to account but where they were on the fringes (I’m thinking travellers if Im honest), now with more immigration and poverty they are scattered everywhere changing the dynamic of where we live and work.

With two primary aged children I am shocked by the lack of budget in schools and the decline in provision for all. The amount of SEN and range of needs in one class. Infuriating.

This is really interesting.
I'm lost too. I think the problems, well articulated in this thread, are
(1) Liberal left afraid to enforce laws lest they be seen as being anti immigrant or racist. Yes many of the issues are caused by poverty, but some is just plain old crime.
(2) Tories going too far to the right to appease Reform voters.
(3) Left rebels causing problems for the centralist middle trying to steady a ship. Like someone else said, basic NHS care should be available for all. "Luxury" treatments for fertility are separate and shouldn't be funded by the state and / or should be means assessed. Likewise if you choose to have six kids then it's not up to the state to fund that choice. I'm in favour of a cap on benefits. I accept it's not the child's fault but providing that child gets free school meals, education and other public services, there is no reason for the state to fund the parents for their choices.

If there was an election tomorrow, I would go Keir but I wish he would take on the rebels in his own party who have essentially forced tax increases on us as a result of their woke liberalism.

We have had 14 years of Tory rule we should we living in a utopia like existence, except we aren’t thanks to their austerity measures, taking money that should have been spent in poorer areas and sending it to areas in Surrey, does anyone remember Rishi boasting about that?

Labour are getting such a hard time, it’s been a year to try and fix the austerity and the mess we are in because of the Tory governments. They are committed to creating growth and removing barriers to it in the financial markets, this is something that is being worked on now.

Half of the wealth in this country is owned by 50 families. If they were taxed at even 2 percent of their wealth that would have raised billions of pounds. The disparity between income and wealth is growing and social mobility is a joke. There is not only a glass ceiling but a class one too.

If we get Reform in then I believe that is the end of the NHS and the insurance based system won’t cover everything you need.

While illegal immigration should be looked at and resolved I don’t understand why the Tory govt made such poor inroads. I think they should have passed special immigration laws and fast tracked those applications within 3 months of arriving or face deportation and held them at the ports. That would have required more immigration law specialists but better than them wasting money on a barge and then the Rwanda system.

@BarkingupalltheTrees @MidnightPatrol

i don’t mind paying more Council Tax and Income Tax if we can see where it’s being spent (like the old days when we didn’t have the problems we have now)

I have felt so disengaged with politics. Always on the left. I am pleased as punch that Corbyn is starting a new party!

I don’t think I was disagreeing. More that you can see why we’ve embraced change without challenge over time. And mn is a good record of why that is.

Labour already increased taxes and borrowing by £70bn at the last budget.

The problem is those policies are slowing down receipts, and lifting debt servicing. It gets in a spiral.

Offering up more taxes, as keen as some are, is just the same again.

There's also a degree of age.

Older people are typically more Conservative than younger people who still have an idealistic view of how it would be nice for the world to work

You mean anti-female rhetoric. Male Supremacy.