Will changes to tax credits prove to be Osbournes Poll Tax?

The electoral danger to the Conservatives is also laid bare in research released by Labour ahead of a Commons debate on the issue on Tuesday. It shows that 71 Tory MPs, including 23 new members of parliament in marginal seats, have more families who are set to lose substantial sums than was the size of their majority last May.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/17/tory-mps-at-risk-tax-credits?CMP=share_btn_tw

Anyone losing money will be very bitter. Those who were aspirational voters especially, because their vote tends to be more motivated by money.
However, the opinion of the UN is not important to most voters, certainly not to those who are perfectly well aware anyway of the welfare cuts.

However, the vast majority of people who are affected are one or more of non-voters, Labour voters or living in safe Labour seats. The number of people who are (a) affected by the change and (b) swing voters in marginal seats is very small.

I don't think we do know this, & there was some quite peculiar voting last time, so it's entirely unpredictable at this stage. Certainly the Tories are actually giving Labour lots of sticks to beat them with next time, if Labour only get properly organised.

The UN is going to investigate IDS's abuse of the disabled. That'll be a tough one to brush under the carpet (they've been trying, but it's out there now)

I was quoting the most official figures I could find, page 10 of House of Commons Briefing Paper
They estimate average loss of £1300 in tax year 2016-2017, for 3.28 millon people, using HMRC statistics.

If other measures compensate for their cumulative loss before the General Election, then some of those Tory voters may return, or they may never forgive.

Depends too on whether Labour have managed to look a credible alternative by then, but it is a truism that oppositions raely win elections: governments lose them.

Approx 3 million low to middle income families, with 4-5 million voters, will lose £1,300 p.a. on average.

It seems to me what with 'stuff' like only affecting new claimants from 2017 and all the tax cuts/didn't rise under Labour from 2010 e.g. National Insurance, there still seems to be a great confusion on who exactly WILL be affected - but clearly it will be sorted by 2020, even if nothing else is done at all in future budgets to help.

Tory voter who confronted minister over tax-credit cuts may not be affected by reforms

”Michelle Dorrell, a 35-year-old mother-of-four, broke down in tears on BBC's Question Time as she confronted a minister over cuts to tax credits”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11937376/Tory-voter-who-confronted-minister-over-tax-credit-cuts-may-not-be-affected-by-reforms.html

A tearful Conservative voter who confronted a minister on BBC's Question Time over cuts to tax credits is unlikely to be affected by the reforms, according to leading economists.

However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested that because Ms Dorrell does not make a profit she is unlikely to be hit by changes to the income threshold for working tax credits, which is being almost halved to £3,850 a year.

She will also not be affected by the changes to child tax credits, which will only be restricted to the first two children for new parents from April 2017.

A Treasury spokesman said: “We cannot comment on individual circumstances, but the Government is determined to deliver a new settlement for the British people, one that will create a higher wage, lower tax and lower welfare economy.”

“The reforms to welfare set out in the Summer Budget are fair and necessary, and will take tax credit spending back only to 2008 levels, with most working households better off once all welfare reforms have come into force by 2017.”

Yes, because cutting tax credits, like introducing the Poll tax, means millions of people losing a significant amount of net income - and at least some of them will be Tory voters.

Approx 3 million low to middle income families, with 4-5 million voters, will lose £1,300 p.a. on average.

The Survation poll found 27% of people said they were less likely to vote Tory because of the tax credit cuts, whereas 14% were more likely to.

So, politically a huge risk, especially as Osbourne looks the most likely to be the next Tory leader and he is responsible for this policy.

If it was up to the church, we'd have £3 trillion national debt, pay £150 bil of annual interest on that debt - and they'd still be waiting for 'god to provide'.

Re The Government argues that a higher minimum wage and tax cuts will make up for the shortfall in incomes, ..there have been far more reforms that that to help the poor since 2010.

What were those gentleman saying from 2008 when all this shit was filtering down onto the poor?

Coming up to May 2010, we had a clueless Labour on how to create non public sector jobs to LIFT people out of poverty, and were putting UP taxes to those poor e.g. National Insurance - the 10p start tax rate had been taken away, Council Tax Band ‘D’ has risen on average 110% over 13-years, the poor started paying tax on earnings at just over £6k - as real earnings FELL from 2008 for those in work, while those out of work and homeless saw 3 million new citizens arrive, limiting their life chance further.

Carey and Williams hit out at tax credit cuts

Two former heads of the Anglican Church have joined the chorus of criticism of the Government’s plan to cut tax credits.

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Lord Carey and Lord Williams have urged ministers to rethink their policy, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates will hit the lowest-earning families by an average of £1,300 per year.

Lord Carey, the archbishop of Canterbury until 2002, told the Daily Mirror Britain needed to “support struggling families who do their best through hard work”.

“I support the aim of the Government to make work pay and put in place a reasonable cap on welfare payments,” he said.

"But I urge the Government to reconsider these particular cuts to working tax credits that will hit many hardworking families very hard indeed.”

Lord Williams, his successor at Lambeth Palace, told the Sun on Sunday yesterday the decision “ought to be common sense”.

“There should be no debate about the aim of getting more people into employment. But it won't do to organise the system so that employment brings no advantages and no proper security for working people and their children,” he said.

The Government argues that a higher minimum wage and tax cuts will make up for the shortfall in incomes, but both the IFS and Resolution Foundation forecast that those on the lowest incomes will lose out.

Some Conservative MPs have also spoken out against the policy, with David Davis warning it could turn out to be this Government’s equivalent of Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax and Boris Johnson using his conference speech to call for low-paid workers to be protected.

www.politicshome.com/economy-and-work/articles/story/carey-and-williams-hit-out-tax-credit-cuts#sthash.dkO6eK8e.dpuf

The very young are being offered a socialist vision without understanding the Labour Party's record delivering it, that were both (soiled) pants.

The elderly that now remember/suffered the last TWO Labour administration, will indeed croak, but unfortunately for Labour, the average age isn't now in their early 60's.

But Labour screwed EVERYONE one way or another, so whatever policy comes up for the next 10-years, there will be a Labour lesson of what NOT to do and an understanding 'the people' will suffer for many years ahead DUE to their last 13-years e.g. pensions.

Apr 2014; ”Revealed: Labour's 'stealth raid' took £118BILLION off pensions, 'paving the way for the end of final salary schemes as they were suddenly unaffordable'
• Gordon Brown scrapped tax relief on pension firms' dividends in 1997
• Move blamed for wrecking industry and decimating final-salary schemes

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2613609/Revealed-Labours-stealth-raid-took-118BILLION-pensions-paving-way-end-final-salary-schemes-suddenly-unaffordable.html

”Analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility shows it has saved the Treasury almost £7billion a year – £2billion more than Mr Brown had expected.”

”The annual gain is expected to top £9.7billion this year with £117.9billion saved between 1997 and 2014.”

”Since 1997, the number of private sector workers with a defined benefit pension has collapsed from 5million to 1.7million.”

”In 1997, 34 per cent of staff at private sector firms were in a final salary – or defined benefit – scheme. By 2012, this had slumped to just 8 per cent – just one in 12.”

”Each year the dividend payments that pension funds were stripped of would have been reinvested and grown.”

”One financial expert calculates that the total amount stripped from the nation’s pensions could amount to as much as £260 billion. With less money in their coffers and with pensioners living longer and needing money for longer, pension funds soon ran into major difficulties.”

Meanwhile these same citizens will have to fund the unfunded pensions of a State bloated under Labour as a means to 'create' employment.
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/10698432/Final-salary-pensions-10-times-more-common-in-public-sector.html

Apr 2015; “Public sector pension scheme liabilities rise to £1.3 trillion
citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/news/public-sector-pension-scheme-liabilities-rise-to-1-3-trillion/a807925

The jump, which is an 11% increase on the £1.2 trillion reported for the 2012-2013 period, makes the cost of paying for public sector pensions nearly the same size as Britain’s deficit, which is currently running at £1.4 trillion,

So not THE old Labour need fear, but the majority of citizens as they GET old - including the spotty youngest Labour court who will end up footing the majority of the bill, while retiring at what, 100-years old?

I'm not sure it will be their downfall. I think it will be part of the puzzle, certainly.

We should consider other things, like the fact that Tory party membership is comprised of the elderly, who won't be around for very long, and on the other hand, a surge in younger people joining Labour who are likely to vote in 2020.

But you probably mean something which will kick them out before the next election?

Well, first they came for the unemployed, and most people didn't complain because they weren't unemployed,

then they came for the disabled, and most people didn't complain because they weren't disabled,

then they came for the poor, and only people started noticing what a bunch of sociopaths the Tories are.

then they came for the middle-class.... and then shit really kicked off.

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We'll soon be entering the last stage.

Yes I think it will be their downfall.

Politicians/parties that rise on the back of promoting false optimism, usually concentrating on a handful of issues/fears saying that they are 'new' or 'different' are no better than oldey world false gods - _as the problems of the state/society/infrastructure will be EXACTLY the same the day after they enter power than the day before. FACT.

Sure a populist party could say build honking great walls to keep people out, put people in camps, or deport them - but all the problems of every day life will always get worse as such policies take up too much time and effort of politicians trying to satisfy the baying crowds fears of insecurities - usually based on any immigration.

Trump the Republican would lead a party with a core pro business, low taxes, small state pedigree, so everyday life may not change too much.

Farage the UKipper would lead a party who in 25-years have not established core policies/values away from the EU, immigration and the Burka, so the party remains a mongrel on all other issues, trying to pitch their badly thought out populist policies to whatever political colour's voters they are targeting in any particular election.

While the majority of the public can still work out that on the problems on jobs, homes, education, the nhs etc etc etc - a political leader/party don't really know whether to have a pooh or a haircut - common sense will prevail. IMO

Give the public a choice - Piers Gaveston versus making life better for the majority. Show the Tories up for what they really are and who they really support. Show the people that Labour is on their side - the majority of the people, not the minority. Speak about what the majority are concerned about.

The public allacross the world are in revolt and dissatisfied with their political class. Look at Donald Trump in the States and the rise of UKIP here. Those people are just waiting to be snapped up by someone who can convince them that they will make their lives better. They have no more loyalty or respect for the elites and are all now swing voters waiting for someone to articulate how their lives can be improved.

'So that's a policy which (a) isn't affordable and doesn't even sound affordable, so no-one (including the elderly) would actually believe it'

That's probably what the Tories said when the NHS was first suggested. Of course it is affordable and it is a vote winner and yes middle class people will benefit and vote Labour for a change because they will think there is something in it for them as well as all the loony left minor issues they always bang on about.

'makes no sense without substantial cuts'

No more cuts, no more austerity. Higher taxes for the rich and the corporates and the BBC stars who invested in tax minimising schemes. If they had real courage and were not politically correct, then obviously they could slash government grants to charidees with self-referring "clients" etc, but we know they can't do that because they are politically correct. The third sector (charidees etc) is now worth about £65 billion pounds. We all know about the high wages of the Labour luvvies who are in some of those and the waste and unaccounatability. Huge savings could be made there.

'would piss off, mightily, most of the hard left.
The hard left are the minority and Labour Party Conference doesn't appeal to the majority because too many speakers only talk about monority issues that appeal to the hard left and are not seen as overly important to the majority. Offer real left wing policies different to anything the Establishment Tory-lites would be allowed to even consider but make sure they appeal to the majority.

'long-distance commuting is a middle-class obsession'

Labour have to start winning back aspirant middle classes by making them better off.

'tuition fees (nothing like the issue you might think, even amongst students)'

This affects parents who often gave to help support their children and are worried about them starting their lives with huge debts around their necks which can affect them buying houses etc. It is about standard of living and removing burdens on people.

'But I don't believe Corbyn can offer that without losing more votes on "economic competence" than he could possibly pick up.'

He could say we are building a million homes (trump the Tories by a huge number) and saying that unemployed people will be trained to do it and that it would be paid for by quintupling tax inspectors dealing with corporate tax evasion and by increasing corporation tax by a few percent and by taxing anyone earning over £100.000 by an extra 10%. Ordinary people don't care if the rich arehit as long as they aren't hit and they can see their lives getting better.

'Offering individual policies without an overall narrative is retail politics'

I agree, no one believed the Tory-lites because they were all spin and Establishment. The narrative should be we are going to make your lives better and the rich are going to pay for it - put Dave and George and the Piers Gaveston in the frame, say that they are profitting while you are paying, that the bankers got off lightly, and you were made to pay and now we are going to turn things around. Show us that you are on our side and that we will benefit while the rich and corporates pay. And make it believable with real left wingers not Establishment Oxbridge cronies who attend Bilderberg meetings and suck up to the elite.

If Corbyn was to stun the Tories by saying that elderly people will get free care and will no longer be forced to sell their homes to pay for it, he would turn around the situation where most pensioners vote Tory overnight for the elderly and their children.

So that's a policy which (a) isn't affordable and doesn't even sound affordable, so no-one (including the elderly) would actually believe it (b) ensures that those whose parents are rich remain rich (c) makes no sense without substantial cuts, or at least no increases, to inheritance tax and (d) would piss off, mightily, most of the hard left.

Other than that, it's a winning strategy.

If Corbyn was to stun the Tories by saying that elderly people will get free care and will no longer be forced to sell their homes to pay for it, he would turn around the situation where most pensioners vote Tory overnight for the elderly and their children. There are lots of things Corbyn might have the courage to do because he is not Establishment and doesn't have to do what they tell him.

With the exception of rail fares (long-distance commuting is a middle-class obsession; working-class commuting is usually within PTAs who regulate the fares) and tuition fees (nothing like the issue you might think, even amongst students) I don't disagree that those issues are important.

But I don't believe Corbyn can offer that without losing more votes on "economic competence" than he could possibly pick up. Offering individual policies without an overall narrative is retail politics, and it was shown to fail in 2010 and 2015. It was how Brown and Miliband lost elections: you identify a group, convince yourself that their main concern is X, and offer a policy to address X. Even assuming that X is so important to that group that they will vote on X and X alone (which I don't think is true) you end up with a manifesto full of lots of Xes, the overall effect of which is to alienate people who think they'll lose more money funding other people's Xes than they'll gain from the one or two Xes they care about.

Ricardian, UKIP will take lots of working class voters away from Labour if Labour remain an Oxbridge metropolitan elite nonentity party of Tory-lites. Labour have to offer something to working class an middle class voters that makes their immigration worries irrelevant. To do that it is going to have to be stunningly good i.e. much cheaper housing, better education, no tuition fees, better job security, higher wages, more jobs, better healthcare, cheaper rail fares and more money in their pockets. Only Corbyn has the buts to offer some of that and if he did, people would forget about immigration because what was offered by Corbyn would be more important.

More Tory-lite policies will never enthuse voters to vote Labour when common sense UKIP are now in the working class space.

but that there are lots of real left wingers who support Corbyn who could replace them in the future

If the Labour Party wants to become an irrelevant party of protest, reduced to 30 seats in London, 100 seats in northern urban areas and little else, that's a pretty good way to do it. In fact, such a party would struggle to even hold those seats, because immigration would see it attacked by UKIP more successfully than at the moment, and even if UKIP couldn't win seats, there are a lot of constituencies where erosion to the Labour vote to UKIP puts other parties (usually Tories) in.

It would be a matter of replacing sitting centrist Labour MPs with hard-left losing candidates.

It would be interesting to see the Labour Party annihilated by this strategy, in the hope that something electable might arise from the wreckage. But I want to see a progressive, redistributive government in office in my lifetime, and I don't think the gedankenexperiment needs to be more than gedanken to know what would happen.

In 2020, the youngest person who could have voted in 1945 will be 96. That is the last time the UK electorate returned an openly socialist Labour Party with a working majority, and even that government was out of office in six years.

Yes, I saw a good interview of Guardian associate editor, Seumas Milne, on Russia Today today and he made some good points which will give heart to the Corbynistas. He said that the current Shadow Cabinet which contains all the splitters is probably just a temporary quick unity move but that there are lots of real left wingers who support Corbyn who could replace them in the future. He said that the Tory boundary changes will force reselection of many Labour MPs and that may remove some of teh splitters and put real left wingers in. He said that when teh Tory tax credit cuts start to bite, it will hit a lot of people, including Tory voters and that will cause a backlash and that any economic downturn that may occur would also aid Corbyn. So Corbyn may be biding his time and the group behind him may only be playing nice with the splitters now but may ditch them later.

When you look at the Tory who was egged in Manchester speaking about Thatcher and "socialist nutters", it is obvious that he doesn't represent the majority of people, but unless Labour can start appealing to the majority by keeping their message simple and aimed at the majority's concerns of employment, wages, housing, health and education, then they won't win us over.

give him time claig, hopefully he's just warming up

'there are too many people in the Labour Party who confuse righteous indignation amongst people who agree with each other with being able to win an election'

You are right. I watched the Labour Party Conference and it was frankly abysmal. It doesn't represent the vast majority of people. It was a factional group of apparatchiks concerned with issues that appeal only to minority interests. It is not good enough, it doesn't reach out to the majority of people. The Labour candidates didn't represent our interests. They should be able to thrash these Etonian toffs - Dave and his anointed pal, George - and the Piers Gaveston by showing us all that Labour represents us and our interests against the toffs. But they are incapable of reaching out to us because their message is all wrong. They should speak only about jobs, wages, education, health, economy, nationalisation etc and leave all the marginal issues to fix when they get in. But by focusing on the marginal issues, they look like they don't care about our interests and become irrelevant to us. Corbyn focuses on the marginal stuff, but if bold enough he could show us why he could do good for us by drastically changing the entire debate, but whether he is really capable of making that leap, I don't know.

did anyone see the channel 4 news tonight, discussing the tax credits cuts? the reporter said at the end that the government don't want people to discuss this and its true, they seem to want to big up the living wage coming in and the rise in the tax thresholds, when in fact this wont go anywhere near making up the shortfall most people are facing..

I remember on Mn when higher earners lost child benefit, there was an absolute outcry, but the tax credits cuts are barely mentioned, there was one poster called ihategeorgeosbourne who was livid and was on every thread discussing this, her husband earned £60k a year IIRC and she was furious they were losing child benefit...well dh and I earn £25k a year between us and we are losing £2600 a year, a little over 10% of our income , much much more than a family with an income of £60k losing child benefit....but its being brushed under the carpet by the government who insist they are helping working people..

Not the majority, but many many working people will be thousands of pounds worse off

I never said otherwise.

However, the vast majority of people who are affected are one or more of non-voters, Labour voters or living in safe Labour seats. The number of people who are (a) affected by the change and (b) swing voters in marginal seats is very small. And the issue is (rightly or wrongly) not seen by people who are not affected as being a matter of concern. Cuts to tax credits and other benefits are largely seen as a non-issue, and it might even be the case that it is seen as a positively good thing by at least as many people as think it is terrible.

It is not an electoral issue. It wasn't in 2010, it wasn't in 2015, and it won't be in 2020. It is not possible to win an election by assembling a coalition of benefit claimants. I am repeatedly saying this at constituency meetings, but even more now than in late May there are too many people in the Labour Party who confuse righteous indignation amongst people who agree with each other with being able to win an election. This was Labour's 35% strategy, and it is a completely busted flush.

If a Labour Party gets into office, it can, should and will reverse these destructive and divisive policies. But it cannot get elected with this as a major part of its manifesto: there just aren't the votes in it.