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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to want spending cuts rather than more tax rises?

1000 replies

PinkFruitbat · 05/09/2026 10:07

The foundations are being laid for more tax rises in the October Budget.

https://www.ft.com/content/6d43b599-3d7c-471c-88c2-0f056475a840?syn-25a6b1a6=1

AIBU to ask for savings in spending to help balance the budget rather than more taxes.

With welfare spending at nearly £1bn each day, when is enough, enough?

OP posts:
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NancyThompson · Yesterday 13:10

EasternStandard · Yesterday 13:02

Really? For those jobs? Madness. We have too many young people who are NEET looking for work as it is.

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It's not happening.

It is happening but it's a good thing.

NancyThompson · Yesterday 13:10

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 13:00

So what? Jobs should be given to the best person for the job.

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Jobs should be given to the best UK citizen/resident for the job.

We should clearly not be giving visas to low-skilled migrants when we have job shortages and UK citizens who could work in these roles.

Original poster
PinkFruitbat · Yesterday 13:03

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:59

That's because a) I wouldn' t know where to even start and b) your posts on this thread are a joke.

You seriously think these billionaires who start up companies treat and pay their staff well? If you're really that deluded, I'm not putting in the mental legwork to demonstrate otherwise, there's ample evidence to the contrary just a short Google away. A couple of names to get you started: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

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I take it you don’t use X, or drive a Tesla, or buy anything from Amazon ?

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MumofCandR · Yesterday 13:02

HollyhocksandPeons · 05/09/2026 20:55

A Maltese person doing cleaning jobs cash-in hand, living in social housing, with 3 children in state schools and getting child benefit, tax credits, etc.? Of course! Let them use the NHS for free as well, why not? We are so rich and have no national debt at all! I have just described my SIL's cleaning lady.

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This is anecdata.

EasternStandard · Yesterday 13:02

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 13:00

So what? Jobs should be given to the best person for the job.

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Really? For those jobs? Madness. We have too many young people who are NEET looking for work as it is.

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 13:00

NancyThompson · Yesterday 12:54

We sure are.

https://x.com/procurementfile/status/2060091840859128316

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So what? Jobs should be given to the best person for the job.

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:59

Goota · Yesterday 12:44

What is factually wrong about this? I see you haven't given an opposing argument.

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That's because a) I wouldn' t know where to even start and b) your posts on this thread are a joke.

You seriously think these billionaires who start up companies treat and pay their staff well? If you're really that deluded, I'm not putting in the mental legwork to demonstrate otherwise, there's ample evidence to the contrary just a short Google away. A couple of names to get you started: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

NancyThompson · Yesterday 12:54

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:50

Are we?

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We sure are.

https://x.com/procurementfile/status/2060091840859128316

Differentforgirls · Yesterday 12:53

SuddenlyBecoming · 05/09/2026 17:14

There are layers upon layers of people working in local authorities thiat can be cut without any affect on services. Literally zero. They could also consider the hierarchy of councils. My area for example has bins which are doubled up 1 bin emptied by the borough, 1 next to it emptied by the parish council. I know a bin to purchase is £500 and to empty each one is £900 per year. Neither bin is particularly used, never full ever. Across my area there are 128 bins, just reducing those to half yields a saving of £58k and if they were never purchased that would be another saving of £32k. There are more than 10k parishes in the UK, if all looked at and rationalised their bins alone what saving could be made? If everywhere is as wasteful could be as much as 570m - just wasted on bins per year.

This doubling up is all over the place in the split between parish and borough, town councils. Look where you live you will start to see it, two different coloured bins one will be parish or town and the other borough. And as I say that is just bins. No one would suffer no one would even notice.

Edited

I’ve looked. They’re all the same council as we only have one.

That’s the problem on here. People think their personal circumstances are the same across the UK.

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:50

NancyThompson · Yesterday 12:41

Why on earth are we handing out work visas willy nilly for employement in such skilled occupations as taxi driver and kebab shop worker then?

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Are we?

Nospringchix · Yesterday 12:46

This.
I guess I'm another shirker. I'm caring for my DH who has severe MH issues and becomes confused and loses his grip on reality. This weekend I've spent 11 hours in A & E overnight one night, and last night hardly sleeping trying to prevent him from having an accident in the house ( which has happened before resulting in the fire brigade being called by me at 4 in the morning) all.whilst dealing with my own health problems.
People don't realise any of us could end up needing help.at any time. I was in a professional role before this. Ther but for the grace of God eh?
💐

JeanSimmons · Yesterday 12:46

strawberrybubblegum · 05/09/2026 10:30

Kemi Badenoch has proposed and costed:

£4bn annually through housing benefit reforms (why on earth should benefit claimants get to live wherever they like? All the rest of us have to live in an area we can afford Confused )

£3.1bn annually from reimposing the two-child benefit cap.

£1bn annually by ending VAT exemptions for motability vehicles.

And £200m per year by scrapping Labour’s deal to give away the Chagos Islands.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/615917bc8ad0e86a

Sounds like a good start!

That would be a very good start indeed. The two child cap should never have been lifted. People need to live within their means and have the families they can afford, not expect the country to subsidise them.

NowSober · Yesterday 12:44

Goota · Yesterday 12:40

Do you not think voluntary charity and community support is better than an all encompassing welfare state.

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Do you not think voluntary charity and community support is better than an all encompassing welfare state.

Like the USA where 60% of bankruptcies are due to medical bills?

Goota · Yesterday 12:44

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:35

Please stop, I’m running out of ribs. 😂😂😂

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What is factually wrong about this? I see you haven't given an opposing argument.

Jaxhog · Yesterday 12:42

PinkFruitbat · Yesterday 12:28

The CPAG definition of poverty is fundamentally flawed.

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Absolutely right. As long as poverty is measured as a percentage , it will always be with us. We need an absolute measure or it is meaningless.

NancyThompson · Yesterday 12:41

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:12

Steal? Are you actually for real?

Do you have any understanding whatsoever of the fact that there are not enough jobs to go around? That many jobs don’t pay enough to live on? That there are many many people with illnesses and disabilities who, even if well enough to work, will be discriminated against by employers nonetheless and thus potentially unable to find a job? In other words, huge numbers of people who want to ‘pay their own way’, are striving to ‘pay their own way’, and are literally unable to do so. What do you suggest they do? Would you like to see a return to the workhouses?

No one, presumably, would dispute that genuine benefit fraud should be cracked down on, but if you don’t like being in a society that at least attempts to cushion genuinely vulnerable citizens, other countries are available. Disgusting levels of prejudice and ignorance in your posts and those of others on this thread.

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Why on earth are we handing out work visas willy nilly for employement in such skilled occupations as taxi driver and kebab shop worker then?

Differentforgirls · Yesterday 12:41

PinkFruitbat · 05/09/2026 17:05

Because to eliminate the fraud, all must be reviewed.

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Got to admit I’d have loved to see David Cameron getting a person to person review to see if he was claiming DLA fraudulently when he was PM.

Goota · Yesterday 12:40

Millytante · Yesterday 12:29

Your last sentence is flipping hilarious

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Do you not think voluntary charity and community support is better than an all encompassing welfare state.

daisyfallout · Yesterday 12:38

Differentforgirls · Yesterday 12:22

https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/poverty-facts-and-figures

Love your user name btw. It’s perfect!

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Read the original report and the research it actually refers to.

I quoted the figures upthread. The minimum net threshold they're using for these statistics is £624 a week for a lone parent with two children and £790 for a couple with two children, after what they define as unavoidable costs (housing, childcare, water and council tax).

It then rather artfully compares this with the wider gross income distribution, glossing over the fact that higher earners are paying substantial amounts of tax and meeting those same unavoidable costs entirely out of their own pockets.

Call me insensitive, but I struggle to describe this as poverty. I suspect plenty of perfectly ordinary middle class households have less genuinely disposable income left at the end of the week.

Jaxhog · Yesterday 12:38

It's easy for those who don't pay the current max tax to want no cuts and more tax - they won't be paying it.

It has to be cuts. Anything else is unaffordable. I have to live within my budget, why shouldn't the country have to do so?

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:35

Goota · Yesterday 12:28

It's literally a fact. Billionaires set up companies that contribute massively to the economy and employ lots of people. Giving them purposeful, well paid, meaningful work

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Please stop, I’m running out of ribs. 😂😂😂

Original poster
PinkFruitbat · Yesterday 12:32

daisyfallout · Yesterday 12:20

I think "shit life syndrome" (nearly an official term now) is absolutely real, very tragic, and probably sits behind a significant proportion of mental health related disabikity claims. The much harder question is what on earth you can actually do about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shit_life_syndrome

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Ha ha, brilliant. This is spot on.

It’s also the toddler mindset:

”What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is mine. What’s broken is yours, until you fix it, and then it is mine.”

OP posts:
Millytante · Yesterday 12:29

Goota · Yesterday 11:32

If a "not" came to rob me or my family we'd put them in their place and show them a thing or two. Before we had the welfare state communities looked after each other, we had private charity and people strived to do well on their own.

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Your last sentence is flipping hilarious

Original poster
PinkFruitbat · Yesterday 12:28

Differentforgirls · Yesterday 12:22

https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/poverty-facts-and-figures

Love your user name btw. It’s perfect!

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The CPAG definition of poverty is fundamentally flawed.

OP posts:
Goota · Yesterday 12:28

ruethewhirl · Yesterday 12:19

I didn’t realise Mumsnet allowed parody accounts. 😂😂😂

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It's literally a fact. Billionaires set up companies that contribute massively to the economy and employ lots of people. Giving them purposeful, well paid, meaningful work

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