To ask if you were Prime Minister for a year, how would you combat the cost of living?

He can't go home. This is his home.

Tax less to encourage growth. It’s tried, tested and proven.

Housing and energy are the big ones.

Deregulate planning, including removing affordable-housing requirements that often end up discouraging building. More supply is the way to bring down prices.

Divert net-zero spending to high-quality carbon offsets that allow us to do the same amount of good for lower cost. Optimise our energy supply for cost and security not carbon. This will reduce energy bills. Build more nuclear (which is great carbon-wise, but takes time).

The above will also spur growth.

So my neighbour from years ago who was bornin Germany because his dad was stationed there in the British army shouldn't get anything? Also many people in the NHS are not British born, it's a bit churlish to not let them

NHS staff have better things to do than interrogating people about their origins.

I came across an idea which I'm just going to put out here.

The idea was that you are not taxed on the first £100 000 that you ern (in total, not annually). The reasoning is that when you are just starting out you are buying a house, having children, possible setting up a business and you will benefit most from having some extra cash.

Build lots of cost neutral social housing, all must be disabled friendly with level access, widened doors, big enough bathrooms & kitchens to accommodate a wheelchair if needed, stairs wide enough for a stairlift, make sure they had the correct wiring for the stairlift, bathrooms must have a level access shower with seat. Make it the law that all current social housing stock must be retro fitted with solar panels & battery storage. Remove the standing charge on gas & electric. Massive windfall taxes on oil companies, water companies & energy providers. Allow kids to go part time at school providing they do a foundation level course in any construction vocations, brick laying, electricians, plumbing, roofing etc, just make them do maths, English & 2 more GCSE's, pay the companies who are building the social housing to employ the kids who started construction to do apprenticeships, if they don't keep them on for at least 5 years after the apprenticeship ends they pay back what they were paid to train them. Higher taxes for companies like Amazon, Starbucks etc. Re employ all the staff who have been finished at HMRC & DWP, reopen tax offices in every town & city to provide a proper service with face to face contact & a named person dealing with your case. Go through the entire NHS & get rid of anyone who doesn't change patient outcomes, employ more doctors, nurses, HCA etc. Bring schools back under council control, get rid of academies & their bloated executive staffing, use the savings to provide better SEN support & reduce class sizes, build smaller secondary schools. Bring all social care back under council control, no private care companies or private care homes & make social care free. Bring all dentists back to the NHS, expand the range of treatments provided by the NHS to include implants.

Lower taxes and review tax bands to get money spending into the market
NHS full review of processes to streamline, sort out procurement, reinvest oartners into more nurses and doctors to get waiting lists down and people back to work rather than being signed off because they are in so much pain awaiting operations. Anyone not entitled to free healthcare to pay up front

stop HS2 and East West rail and reinvest part into existing network, rest into increasing social housing and increasing defence

Sort immigration, thus reducing amount spent of them whilst awaiting entry or deportation money to be reinvested in defence

MPs and House of Lords expenses to be reviewed, no allowance for houses in London and constituent area. They buy in constituent area and stay in a hostel in London. House of Lords reduced in numbers

all quangos stopped no civil servant is to earn more than the PM with the PMs salary capped

Remove triple lock ( and I say that as someone who gets the state pension )

and the bus pass

Oh and another - means test the pension.

Australia does it already without major issue.

also engage the process of universal basic income,

instruct the intelligence services to fiddle the stock market as much as possible.
people want capitalism that does not equate with having price limits on cost of food etc

Higher rate of inheritance tax and close the loopholes the wealthy use to avoid it.

Find a way to tax the massive corporates more. There must be a way to do it, even though they'll scream bloody murder that they'll all pack up and leave (they won't).

Tax gains on share price gains/dividends at a much higher rate than employment income.

Reduce immigration by 80%. The country is bursting at the seams.

Less money spent on woke schemes. I'm a leftie but the pandering to every single person to be 'inclusive' is a massive waste of money and effort.

Close the tax loopholes that corporates and high net worth individuals with clever accountants use to avoid paying tax. The more tax wealthier firms & individuals pay, the less of a tax burden ordinary tax payers have to carry.

The poor and middle earners have been taxed too much & helped the mega wealthy avoid paying it by being taxed to the hilt. I actually can't afford to pay out on additional bills & tax anymore.

I have nothing more left to give, if Rachel Reeves is planning another tax hike then I can't afford to pay it. Amazon needs to pay the UK the tax it owes on the profits it makes because we can't afford to subsidise it anymore.

Change legislation and start making it compulsory for companies like Amazon to pay tax in this country on the profits they earn

Multi generational living will happen in my family over my dead body! Though I agree we should pay carers of elderly and disabled folks properly, whether they are family or doing it as a job. Moving in a parent or relative doesn't always negate the need for paid care either.

Agree with most of @FalseSpring’s suggestions. However, I think means testing the state pension would be a bad idea as people should be encouraged to pay into occupational / private pensions as much as possible (and indeed with auto enrolment this is clearly what the govt wants.)

the problem with means testing certain things is that people will game the system- why would I pay hundreds of pounds into an occupational pension if I’m going to then lose hundreds of pounds from my state pension?! It’s similar to the concept of people who have savings needing to use them on care homes whereas the guy down the road who frittered all his assets away on his lifestyle will end up likely in the same care home funded by the state.

There are already too many perverse incentives created by govt policies over the years; means testing the state pension would be disastrous

Social housing for UK citizens only. Government able to garnish the bank accounts of fathers who do not live with their kids. Unemployment benefit for non resident fathers limited to 6 months. Passports seized from absent fathers who do not pay child support. Onus on fathers to prove that the child is not biologically theirs.
Only palliative care to people over 80. We are all living too long and keeping people alive too long.
Massive social housing programme set up with NEETs required and paid to learn the construction trade and work to build said houses. If they refuse then benefits will be withdrawn. Anxiety and depression will not be an excuse.
It will be expensive and need to be costed but in the long run will save the country billions.

Needs much more than a year but build lots more housing (/deregulate planning) and build a huge fleet of nuclear power stations. Scrap SDLT, scrap the absurd rent control law Labour seems to have passed by accident, to improve housing supply.

Reinstate the non-dom regime for new arrivals to attract high-tax paying, low service-using global rich to ease the tax burden on those already here.

Introduce a surcharge, it can be called the TAT, on all orders made to Shein, Temu and Amazon. The TAT goes directly to HMRC.

The first thing I would do is increase the personal tax free allowance to around £20,000 or more, maybe link it to minimum wage x 30-35 hours.

Then I would amalgamate income tax and NI to make the system easier, so abolish NI but add the necessary % to income tax. I would get rid of employer's NI completely to boost the job market but put a couple of % on Corporation Tax.

I would also force a better balance between staff pay at different levels and incentivise more profit sharing schemes to make things fairer and reduce the inflated earnings of wealthy business owners.

Obviously to balance the books I would need to make huge cuts in spending but these would include abolishing a lot of tax credits for low earners as people should earn their own money. Means test all remaining benefits including the state pension and increase ongoing financial checks to cut down on benefit fraud. It shouldn't be an easy option to live on benefits. This would all need to be carefully planned to avoid critical cliff edges and allow people to earn a small sporadic income for a lower level of benefits to account for those trying to top up their income from self employment. Back in the 1980s, there was a weekly enterprise allowance (of limited duration) for the newly self employed to help them get started - something like this should be brought back to encourage people such as the out of work, the disabled and stay at home parents of young children to earn what they can working from home, etc.

Scrap the NHS and set up a European style (not US) insurance contribution based system. Introduce ID cards and ensure only those over 18 who have paid in (or are genuine emergencies) are treated unless they can pay the bill. The current free-for-all needs to stop. All health services should remain free for under 18s if they have British citizenship - everyone else needs insurance or to be entitled to contribution-based state pension based on years worked. We have an aging population so can't possibly pay for everyone in the future. Those that can afford it should be incentivised to go private by offering tax relief on private health insurance. I really don't care if it produces a two-tier system, there needs to be a safety net, but not to the extent that exists now.

Set up many more minor injury units/24 hour GPs in the community to remove the pressure on A&E which should be restricted to real life-threatening A&Es (or those referred from minor injury/GP) only. Also set up more separate mental health and addiction units as these issues need to be dealt with away from A&E. GPs need to invest in more equipment to reduce the need for hospital visits. Things like blood test analysis, ECGs and scans should be available at GP surgeries (they are in many other countries) to speed up the system of diagnosis and treatment.

Re-organise local councils to remove the postcode lottery that occurs in many aspects of local council services and standardise everything across the regions which would simplify the rules, and cut the need for so many staff. The ridiculous planning system needs a complete overhaul as do many other local services.

We should incentivise multi-generational living, not penalise people for building annexes on their homes. We should offer more tax incentives for carers of all types, whether it is care of young children or the elderly. An increase in the tax free allowance should be provided for anyone who has a dependant relative (child or elderly relative) living with them. We need to get away from the need for two full-time working parents - it is detrimental to parents and children alike and is increasing the need for social care. The Government currently pays for third-party organised childcare, but offers no incentive for families to look after their own children and I find that very wrong. Surely in most cases, the best care is given by a parent or close relative. Whilst I wouldn't want to see a return of the 1950s style housewife, I think in the early years should be made easier for either parent to reduce hours, or take time off work to look after their children.

Council Tax should also be abolished. Paying for things like education and social services on the basis of the value of your house (in 1991) is a crazy idea. Also, the fact that it is a local tax means that there are huge discrepancies across the country with Londoners paying much less than everyone else. Everyone needs to contribute and again I would prefer that these taxes were added to income tax. I do however approve of the new £2m mansion tax and think that is a better solution to shift some of the tax burden to the very wealthy. I also think an annual house tax like this would be preferable to the current system of stamp duty (which I also think should be abolished).

Services such as bin emptying should be on a much fairer 'per bin' basis. Road repairs should be paid for from fuel duties (including duties on electric car usage) so they are paid for by those that use them most - ie. per mile. Road tax is another whole unnecessary department that could be scrapped if we just put a higher tax on fuels.

Education is another problem area, but I could make a whole other long post about that so I won't go into it here as this post is already long enough!

I think we also need to substantially increase import taxes, including import taxes on food. We need to support British farmers and eat more local produce. Food flown round the world should be an expensive luxury, not a cheap alternative.

I believe that if taxes and benefits were much more transparent, people would have less issues paying them!

Very short sighted. The tiny amount of money we spend overseas would do little to combat issues here, and it serves a wider purpose. Global health initiatives like vaccination programs and healthcare protect the world from disease spreading. For example, the work we do on Ebola has stopped a global outbreak. Because we vaccinate at risk groups overseas from TB, we no longer need to vaccinate in the U.K.

The largest amount we spend on humanitarian aid is currently in Ukraine. Were it not for aid supporting people to remain in their country, they would be far more likely to come here where it costs way more to support them. The same is true of Syria and Afghanistan.

Tax extreme wealth higher especially on their assists and close the loopholes that allow wealthy to pay less tax and money to go towards all public services

create a cross party committee that deals with reforming the health service the NHS is not worth keeping just because it’s free at the point of service and look to France and Germany health case systems

Cap rents and increase home building

tax higher money made from property income

do something about putting laws into place so we decrease the millions of public money wasted on planning projects this has become a hugely profitable business in itself

@HelenaWaiting that’s not a criticism by the way - I would not understand such things in Italian! It was helpful to understand how this misunderstanding came about.

Ha! I would never be prepared to do that job. Shame somebody who wants to won’t adopt my list of policies, though. It’s really sad that things could be improved substantially for the vast majority of the population and future generations but we have nobody to vote for who is prepared to do it.

It wasn’t about your grammar, it was about your tone which didn’t appear to be how a professional person would usually write, and the fact that you’d made very emotional and divisive comments about the subject rather than analytical and rational ones with any suggestion of how to improve things, which was the subject of the OP.

Based on your later responses you seem to have misinterpreted the general third person plural “you” as a third person singular reference to you personally, which is understandable if English is your second language, alongside perhaps you being unfamiliar with metaphorical expressions in English such as “biting the hand that feeds you”, which does not imply that people are actually canines. This would explain why you took personal offence to my comment and incorrectly interpreted it as an insult directed at you personally, when it was not.

I know, I totally agree: nobody will vote for what needs to be done and evidence-based policies that will actually raise livings standards so the doom loop will continue to accelerate, and become a fall at terminal velocity if the UK public decides to vote for a Reform Government.

Sadly, we lack any politicians with the vision or integrity even to attempt it, and lack an electorate with sufficient foresight and economic understanding to demand competent politicians who will do so. It is useful, however, to highlight that there are coherent policies that could reverse the current decline if implemented and that the claims of successive Governments that there is nothing they can do about it, and that they have to make “tough decisions” (by which they mean implementing policies that will actually make things worse, rather than doing the things I listed), is false.