Conservatives closing the gap on reform

100% some people have no clue of the practicalities and thats before we get onto school bullying over wearing worn out clothing etc

Not just clothes though is it? More than one teen can share an Xbox - they don't "need" one each if parents can't afford it! Same applies at other ages, especially younger, i.e. you only need one swing or climbing frame, xmas presents like games can be shared, bikes and scooters etc can be bought to share (i.e. neutral colours if mixed sex children etc rather than pink or blue!). You can get family subscriptions for netflix, spotify etc so an extra child doesn't mean extra subscription costs. Food is often cheaper per person if larger items bought. There are lots of ways in which economies of scale work for bigger families. Clothes are just a small part of it.

😁yeah.

My ds was 10 years older than dd. She’d have looked amazing in his hand me downs.

Nail on the head there in all aspects. Definitely some way of transferring assets from the old to the young to encourage spending, investment, etc.

How so?

Should 14yo Stephen wear Emily's cloths as she grows out of them? esp when Emily is small for her age but Stephen takes after his Dad and is of much larger build, not fat but just bigger

Why don't you just come out with it and say the poor should be in the Work House if they cannot manage?

Doesn't matter how big they get, hand me downs still work.

The public can also understand that there are economies of scale when having children as baby equipment/clothes/toys etc can be shared so child benefit should be decreased after the first/second child

They don’t stay little for ever. I take it you don’t have expensive teens?

UK had, for several years, very low Corp tax rates, one of the lowest in the G20.

It gave us zero to 1% growth pa but cost the Govt a fortune.

People who advocate low taxes need to realise that businesses need more than that.
So i know a CEO of a firm that is growing fast, despite the NI costs, he grows through innovation and seeking skills from around the world, until he went overseas, it was lack of UK skills, technical, development & marketing that was holding him back.
They now have S/W dev and helpdesk abroad, various other functions in India the USA, S/Africa & Europe.

The rest of your post is advocating higher taxes, cutting triple lock isn't going to save us & how much would it save when many pensions forced onto benefits? inflation is falling, so is wage growth, so pension increases will slow.

But what we really need is skills and better public services so companies that do grow or invest in the UK, have the faith that the workforce can get healthcare, their kids have good schools, that the company can transport goods cheaply and on time.

We don't have any of this.

If the conservatives continue to adapt the Reform policies I would vote for them. The biggest issue is who will sort of the welfare bill.

@1dayatatime
If the corporate tax was lowered but capital gains was raised (with no tax on investment +10%), this could help business whilst also taxing people on assets. People would be more likely to support a decrease in corporation tax, if they thought that it wasn't just to support the rich but to grow the economy.
Reform is gaining support and they plan to cut taxes on business.

Yep, there’s a few threads on here and you can see the ever increasing demands. Although mn is a bit at odds with polling. Still I agree with your points, it’s not something people will get.

I totally agree that the electorate won't go for it, even though it has been shown to create economic growth.

But 22% of the working age population are economically inactive so they are not going to vote for Corporation tax cuts and would favour increased welfare spending.

Of those in work, 35% don't pay any income tax so they wouldn't be in favour of tax cuts either.

And lastly 18% of all those in work are in the public sector so they would have no interest in cutting corporation tax either and would again favour higher government spending.

Perhaps the only option is for the country to go bankrupt and then have policies imposed on the country by the likes of the IMF or ECB because the electorate certainly won't vote for it.

I mean how to get it right. I’m agreeing on Ireland getting it right, but the electorate here won’t go for it.

You are absolutely right that cutting corporation tax would grow the economy (just as Ireland has done).

I also fully agree with you on getting rid of the pension triple lock (as well as having a two child benefit cap).

But I recognise that your and my opinions are very much in the minority of the electorate as a whole. No party will ever get elected saying that they will get rid of the triple lock given the strength of the pensioner vote.

I have always thought that there should be a redistribution of wealth not just from rich to poor but from old to young. If you give tax breaks to people in their 20s then you are encouraging young people to work as hard as they can, but a house, get married and generally be productive members of society. A habit that will stay with them for life and into their 30s when the tax breaks drop off.

Taxing (ie increasing taxes) for growth is a contradiction in terms.

Cutting taxes especially Corporation tax does create growth as Ireland has demonstrated.

On your point about CT being lower and successfully so with Ireland that’s down to the electorate. You can see on mn themes of tax them more, whether it’s corporations or vat on education. The rhetoric means politicians are more unlikely to win.

Maybe next time we’ll have a better view on how to tax for growth.

Why would you need a random podcast to tell you how to think and vote? Try and think for yourself perhaps. Everyone walks in their own shoes and can make their own minds up according to their own experiences.

I agree that immigration is not the most pressing issue that Reform or the press make it out to be, although I recognise that it is an important issue.

IMO the most pressing issue is the continued managed slow economic decline caused by:
Spending being £100 billion more than tax revenue causing the Government debt to increase meaning the amount spent on servicing that debt (£126billion) is growing and is larger than the entire education budget(£119 billion).

Higher taxes to try and plug this deficit simply means that the economy slows meaning more tax rises are needed for Government spending meaning the economy slows again and so on in a doom loop.

@1dayatatime
If you were the chancellor what would you do?
Ireland is a liberal democracy with high economic growth. Why can't we reduce corporation tax like them? We could spend less on triple-lock pensions/child benefit.
You argue that triple lock pensions are political suicide but many media outlets have said that pensions have risen much faster than average wage growth and that they are unaffordable. I think the public can understand that this doesn't make sense. Even if they can't-the current government should do what is right when there is only so much pie to give out. The public can also understand that there are economies of scale when having children as baby equipment/clothes/toys etc can be shared so child benefit should be decreased after the first/second child.
Council tax bands are based on 1991 values. If we combined council tax and stamp duty into an annual property tax this could free up the property market and possibly bring in more tax based on actual house values.

It’s how landlords are taxed. And yes, it’s batshit.

Immigration isn’t the issue that the likes of Farage would have you believe. Listen to The Trawl podcast and you’ll start understanding what the issues actually are. Then you can vote with confidence.

Yes you're right, it is possible to make such structural reforms if they are imposed on the country by an external body like the IMF or the ECB (which is not that democratic as many Greeks complained about at the time).

But only after the country has run out of money and is effectively bankrupt.

The party that would tip the UK into bankruptcy fastest would be the Greens followed by Reform.

Possibly, but I like to think tax is fair, a small retailer on a busy high street will be paying a lot of business rates. Compare that to a company that has an operation on a brownfield site, employs automation and possibly pays less rates than the retailer in a city centre.

Companies line up in the Hague, despite huge rates and regulations......I wonder why we can't do the same. Would it be our position in Europe.

No that won’t work I agree.

And we do already tax consumption: that's VAT. Which will obviously be charged on every cake Starbucks sell to eat in.