“Tax the wealthy” (RR budget) what does this even mean?

Credible?!?!?!

It would be funny if we wouldn’t all be forced to live with the consequences.

This falls firmly under point 2) in my list. With a sprinkling of 3) and perhaps others.

Not demise, means-testing like in Australia, who sensibly reformed their state pension system a couple of decades ago foreseeing the same demographic time-bomb (it used to be structured based on ours). This would leave zero pensioners in poverty, and remove it only from those who already have incomes above the average full time salary of those in work who do not need it.

Meanwhile auto-enrolment should be mandatory with a similar scheme for self-employed people so nobody has a choice to not save for their own retirement.

Taking these steps (and significantly raising the mandatory contributions at the same time) would still leave a net saving of £80bn per year to the treasury, which can be spent on education, infrastructure, industrial policy (which will raise living standards) and tax cuts that will promote growth.

I am neither “on benefits” or wealthy. Although I would be one of those who don’t receive it myself if it was means-tested despite paying large amounts of tax, yet I still see that this is absolutely what needs to happen.

The low-paid workers you profess to care about are currently funding welfare for millionaires (25% of those claiming state pension are millionaires). Means-testing it would be far more beneficial for the low-paid workers than endlessly raising retirement age (which is also insufficient to address the problem fiscally).

Well for a start they are talking about raising the age you get a pension. There's no actual pot of money with your name on so we really are at the mercy of government policy. And obviously government finances. As if we are bust the state pension will be the first to go. (Unlike the pension of the blessed public sector. Ive seen what benefits a doctor gets for example. Eye watering).

They should put NI on unearned income. Its ridiculous that someone earning £50k from working pays more tax than someone receiving income from a trust fund or investments.

Spot on. I bet those advocating the demise of the state pension are either very wealthy or spent a lifetime on benefits so somehow thinks they will be looked after. All courtesey of a low paid worker who worked for over 45 years who then gets zero. Laughable

It’s not based on the cash you put in but the number of years you pay in. If they were to legislate to means test and people who for 30 years budgeted for it in retirement suddenly didn’t get it there would be an outcry.

of course governments can change the law but they would never get that through either house

Labour.are in power until 2029. We may.be a very different country by then. We've been in decline for decades. Neither Conservative or Labour have changed that. At least Reform haven't buggered anything up yet. Let's see.

What do you propose? More of the same? The Greens/breast hypnotiser? Dictatorship?

I wasn’t talking about my personal opinions. I was talking about the economic impact of their stated policies.

This thread is about the impact of fiscal decisions. Those that Reeves is making are causing a doom loop. Those that the Conservatives made were also very unwise and caused stagnation, and then self-inflicted economic harm. Those that Reform are proposing would be catastrophic. Independent economic analysis of their stated policies and the impact these would have if implemented - by various reputable and independent organisations - has shown this to be the case. Not one credible economist has anything positive to say about their proposed policies, understandably. It’s not like you need to perform a detailed economic forecast to see that they don’t add up, you simply need to read them.

So my question was how is voting for them going to improve any of the issues which are making people unhappy with Reeves? What do you foresee being the effect on the economy of them implementing these policies?

Yes I read it, it was 10 different variations of saying stupid and racist.

Absolute bullshit. For years we have had people vote for a party on the basis on that is what their parents did before them. People are seeing that there are now more credible options than the career politicians who fill the Labour and Tory Parties.

You can give your opinion as to whether you personally see their policies as good or bad of course. But (politely) I didn't really ask you and I of course disagree with you. And I'm the one thinking of voting Reform not you presumambly? Labour policies have been far worse and more destructive than Truss's. She was on the right track but messed up because she didn't cut spending.

Unfortunately the APR regs are probably irreversible. Because of the bond market. One example of the law of unintended consequences. And an example of how utterly appalling this government is.

As I said, I'm voting and I'm not voting for a left wing party. So it's conservative or reform. Sometimes in life you've just got to chose.

Who knows what will happen in the future but under pensions on the HMRC app it shows how many years you have contributed and your projected state pension. If there is no correlation, why do they do this? Also Martin Lewis is advocating buying missing years to get a full state pension. Again, why do that if it isn't a thing?

Any changes would need to be introduced gradually.

A number of reasons which will apply to different people who intend to vote for them:

1. A poorly educated electorate who have next to no understanding of economics so are easily redirected from the pressing issues into flapping around in rage and squabbling over irrelevancies/ directing their anger at scapegoats.

2. Lack of an appropriate alternative and the mistaken belief that “it can’t be any worse” (it absolutely can, and would be).

3. Minimal interest in politics and no desire to engage with facts or economic data or discuss credible solutions and would rather be sold cake, even if it is mouldy and rotten or, indeed, entirely imaginary.

4. Too much time spent watching bilge like GB news or “reading” the Daily Mail/ Telegraph/ targeted social media posts and believing this means they are well-informed.

5. A tendency of many to vote for a party because they find the party leader convincing/ personable, rather than focusing on policy and outcomes.

6. Magical thinking like with Brexit and - due to years of mismanagement having made living standards fall on an ongoing basis - people now (understandably) being so desperate for meaningful change that they are looking for quick and easy solutions and prepared to believe what is quite plainly utter nonsense, falling for the “divide and rule” tactics and shouting down anybody who says otherwise as “woke” or “lefty” or whatever the insult of the day is.

7. Some are very wealthy so would actually gain from Reform being in power, but they are few in number: the vast majority of those who state that they intend to vote for them are from the demographic who would suffer the most as a result but seem to not realise this fact.

8. Of course a few are racists so find the xenophobic rhetoric appealing.

9. Others are from areas where asylum seekers have been concentrated so have genuine concerns about this particular issue because it is causing social/ crime problems, yet seem to believe that this is the main cause of the UK’s issues and declining living standards and that if it COULD be fixed suddenly everything else will be ok, which categorically it will not. But it’s a great way to whip up support from people who would not benefit at all from your policies which is why Farage is doing it.

10. Maybe some of them really did receive their Brexit unicorn in the post?

Who knows what will happen in the future but under pensions on the HMRC app it shows how many years you have contributed and your projected state pension. If there is no correlation, why do they do this? Also Martin Lewis is advocating buying missing years to get a full state pension. Again, why do that if it isn't a thing?

Any changes would need to be introduced gradually.

Ok. But these policies won’t fix our economic decline, or even slow it down. Meanwhile the immigration policy that they’ve proposed (withdrawing any permanent residency rights without citizenship, even retrospectively) will be immensely economically harmful.

They’ve proposed multiple policies that don’t stand up to the slightest economic scrutiny, and with no practical way to implement them. Meanwhile they witter on about things like “DEI” which is a complete irrelevancy to the national budget. This is the sort of culture-war nonsense I was talking about earlier used to play to specific people’s belief systems rather than basing policy on economics and outcomes. Sadly the Conservatives have lost all economic sense and are mimicking them rather than returning to the centre ground. Perhaps even the last wipeout wasn’t enough to teach them a lesson.

Reform’s tax policies proposed to date will create a tax shortfall in tax revenues of £90bn and they have not proposed any spending cuts of this amount (in fact, their policies also involve a significant increased cost to the treasury on top of this), nor have they suggested any way to generate growth to fund this eye-watering amount.

Per my earlier posts I agree that a lot of tax changes need to happen to remove incentives to growth, including lowering the overall tax burden. These are not what Reform is proposing. Spending also needs to be reduced overall, but primarily redirected to productive areas. Guess what? Reform isn’t proposing that either.

It’s like the Liz Truss lettuce on steroids.

How do you think the bond markets would react to people with such a policy prospectus even being elected, before they even tried to implement them?

What do you think would happen next?

Boomer is such an derogatory term. And, no I was not born in what are considered the baby boom years.

State pension entitlement isn't based on contributions sadly. It's based on government policy. The government can't change the public sector pensions (as its a contractual obligation which I've been saying for months) but it can change the state pension.

Nope. You didn’t bother to read it, did you?

I specifically stated that there were many reasons people might be considering voting for them, and that not all would apply to all, of course. Clearly the racists had to be mentioned because we know they’re part of the picture. They weren’t mentioned until point 8 though, were they? Meanwhile I stated various other reasons such as: being wealthy people who will benefit immensely from their policies (like Reform’s financial backers); (understandable) desperation with the trajectory of UK living standards; a misguided belief that “things can’t get worse”; a lack of economic education in schools; misinformation being targeted via social media; some people living in areas highly impacted by rehousing of asylum seekers and therefore this being the key issue for them despite country-wide and in terms of national budget the impact being minuscule…. Etc.

Hope the shorter summary helps you. Stop trying to misrepresent other’s people’s comments due to your own laziness to read them. Or if you did, then your response falls clearly into the latter part of point 6) in my list: falling for “divide and rule” tactics and treating everyone who says anything you disagree with as “the enemy”. It’s boring, and it isn’t remotely constructive.

It’s the social contract - not an actual contract

m fully aware nic is just a tax but when you tell people they will be entitled to a pension if they pay that tax then they will expect one - now governments can tweak the age you can take it and the amount but if they wholesale removed it from certain people it would cause a loss of faith in that government.

I would much rather we had a system like Germany where you pay in and get back on that basis for pension, unemployment benefit etc.

government's over the last 40 years spend everything they get in (and more) and then are surprised they can’t pay what they’ve promised too in the future

The old you’re stupid and racist rhetoric is so 2015, but I do like it being stretched into a 10 point format. Nice touch.

Sadly, that is not the case. It is and always has been a welfare benefit as set out in the National Insurance Act 1948 and entitlement criteria and amounts (or even its existence) are subject to change. There is no contract. If it’s not affordable, it’s not affordable. It was known for decades that it would become completely unaffordable in its current form due to demographic changes and nobody put any pressure on politicians to do anything about it so they are hardly in a position to complain if it is changed radically in a short space of time because that’s the only realistic option left now.

What you paid was tax. You had to pay it. That entitles you not to be in prison for tax evasion, not to welfare in perpetuity. I’m sure we’d all love the choice to opt out of tax and invest the money instead but I’m not sure how that’s relevant. Many receiving it made very little contribution and the majority did not pay a sufficient amount to fund it. It’s factually false to claim otherwise.