what are the top 3 things that you think the government should be tackling?

[MentholLoad]

after reading various headlines related to the Tory Party Conference and also not related to the conference, I am interested to hear what people think the priorities should be for the government?

because to me they are just mincing around the edges, HS2, smoking bans, so much emphasis on stopping immigrants, post 16 qualifications....huh?

for me, these are the 3 top priorities (subject to change, as I read other people's!)

1. the NHS
2. social housing (need more) and rental properties (the STATE that landlords are providing and controlling the cost
3. poverty....cost of living/wages
4. the environment....water pollution (water companies discharging sewage to rivers etc) and air pollution

The number of people too lazy to work is tiny. Benefit fraud really isn't a top priority issue.

Education

Healthcare

Immigration

NHS sort out the mismanagement and reform
Education
Crime generally

1. Climate change
2. NHS
3. Education (not reforming the system per se but making sure schools have the funding to hire enough support staff, retain their existing staff, support kids properly)

There's a two child limit for benefit applications for kids under 6 so going forward this situation is less likely to crop up. Also they are migrating everyone over to UC and people will need to look for work or face sanctions. I'm not against benefits, I claim UC but I work nearly 50 hours a week. It's pretty depressing that I can't afford to eat, pay a mortgage/ bills, run a car on what actually is a decent salary.

Climate change
Public services
and to pay for it all
A tax on asset wealth that means rich retired boomers with crazy amounts of tax breaks have to contribute more to society

I know!

Public transport. It's actually disgusting that I can drive to work for almost half what it would cost to use planet saving public transport.

Inheritance tax. Not likely to affect my DC but why on earth should people have to pay 40% tax on money that has already been taxed?? America has a much fairer system than we do.

NHS. There's a colossal amount of money spent on unnecessary managers. Anyone going to A&E for non emergencies should be told they'll incur a charge to be treated. GP surgeries should be open for late night and weekend appointments.

Nhs
Policing
Low cost housing

The vast majority of suggestions on this thread basically boil down to the government spending more money to tackle huge problems. The problem is we as a country don't have enough money to throw at every major issue so we have to be more creative in our approach and look at underlying issues.

The NHS cannot continue in its current form and we need to make some tough decisions about what is completely state funded and what we can ask patients to contribute towards their treatment. Contrary to what some on the left will have you believe, it isn't a choice between our current NHS and the American system. Many countries like Holland have alternative approaches that could be adopted here. We also need to have a much greater focus on sorting out the population's health. Junk food, smoking and alcohol etc should be highly taxed for as long as the public are expected to pickup the cost of any expensive treatment needed as a result of people's lifestyle choices. More emphasis should be placed on diet and things like ultraprocessed foods should be clearly labelled and taxed accordingly.

People should expect to pay for social care and that means selling houses etc if/when you need to go into a home. It should be expected that those that pay will get a better standard of care home and this should be communicated to people asap.

Non residential parents should be made to pay a fair amount of child support that better represents the cost to the residential parent of having the child around more. The ridiculously low level of maintenance currently allowed just places a greater burden on the state and disproportionately disadvantages women who often aren't afforded the opportunity to continue their lives pretty much unencumbered, just sending over a fraction of their wage every month.

The NHS
Illegal immigration
All levels of crime

Median income in London these days is £45k so two people would be £90k. So we are above average if you ignore the fact that many of the lower earning people in London tend to be younger people (many on hospitality wages but no dependents and fairly transient). As there is a middle class exodus due to the cost of rent/mortgage, majority of people in London are either rich or poor with a declining middle class population with the exception of those young transient workers or new immigrants (who do not tend to stay long and if they did, their earnings would generally catch up).

I am neither rich nor very poor, so in the middle. But also when i compare to many londoners in our age group (early 30s) who have managed to stay in London (and are in a similar salary range), many have benefitted from help with deposits and have gotten more money than we managed to save living at home. The ones who are slightly older also benefitted from buying property 10 years earlier than me. its a hard question. I would say I am better off than many londoners but then when you compare yourself against londoners (who are planning on staying here long term), its a different story.

Do you have a source for the median salary being £45k? ONS states that median salary in London in 2023 is just shy of £37k. Which would equate to household income of £74k if we assumed that every household had 2 adults working full time, which of course they don't for a whole variety of reasons. So I suspect that the ^actual' median income for London is way lower than you think it is. And I don't think all of the low earners are young people with no dependants.

You just don't see the families surviving on much lower incomes because you don't move in those circles. That doesn't mean that they don't exist though.

The vast majority of suggestions on this thread basically boil down to the government spending more money to tackle huge problems. The problem is we as a country don't have enough money to throw at every major issue so we have to be more creative in our approach and look at underlying issues.

A lot of it is ideology. Housing everyone is vastly cheaper than dealing with homelessness and all the fallout from it. But ideologically, if you're a Dickensian villain politician, you need an 'underclass' to scare people into behaving. Whether that's gangs or homeless people, you need people to believe that living outside the structure of work hard until you drop will lead to them being very unhappy.

Solving homelessness is a piece of piss. Unless you want housing to be a commodity, people to be scared and used as a source of income for rich people to squeeze. I could put a few policies into place right now that would reduce homelessness and make money. The Tories know about them too, they're not stupid. They just don't want to.

The NHS.
Immigration.
The police farce.

tbh i have no dependents either (DINKY) but hope to have one dependent in the future. I think a lot of the families who survive on lower incomes live in multi generational families or council housing. But thats not my living set up either, i have a two bed flat that I own jointly with DH. MIL says she could do 1 day of childcare per week if i had a child but probably not more so have to pay for the other days.

DH's mum survives in London on less than minimum wage as well her daughter. But I can't replicate their set up as DH's mum's house is all paid up and she is also due an inheritance plus would have state pension. I suspect DH's youngest who is still in London (and living at mum's house) is already making exit plans to leave the UK. I plan on staying in London for the foreseeable future in contrast

The vast majority of suggestions on this thread basically boil down to the government spending more money

It’s easy to list how to spend, harder to do the raising funds part

Yes, nail on the head. Everyone always wants "someone else" to pay!

What will your policies be?

Sorry meant to quite MrsTerryPratchett.

Properly solving homelessness and the underlying issues that drive people to homelessness certainly wouldn't be a piece of piss. It is a really complex area that includes addiction, mental health issues and deciding how we as a society deal with people that can't or won't live within societal norms. It's easy to romanticise this but ultimately society and civilisation exists through public consent and people playing by the accepted 'rules' of a civilised society. Many people have the street cannot be 'housed' in a conventional way and it isn't as simple as finding empty buildings and plonking them there.

Exactly this.

What we should all be asking, whether we extremely rich or poor, is why have we all been paying more and more taxes each year but all public services have got worse. This is the massive elephant in the room.

Of course, everyone will have different outgoings and living situations etc. Some out of necessity and some out of choice. But the reality is, with a household income of £120k and no dependants, you are vastly better off than the majority of London residents. That is just a fact.

I appreciate that you might not feel wealthy, especially if you are surrounded by people who are even more affluent than you are. It's human nature to benchmark your own experience against what you see around you. But your perception is not the reality.

1. Reducing the amount of illegal immigrants allowed into the country and stop putting them to the top of the waiting list for housing, ahead of people who have been waiting for years.
2. CoL crisis. Companies are profiting from this tbh. Items have been increasing by ridiculous percentages whereas wages have been left stagnant. Laws should be introduced capping the amount that companies can increase the cost of their items by
3. Reduce the foreign aid bill and redirect the monies to places such as the NHS. We’re handing over millions/billions to extremely rich countries and it needs to stop.

@EasternStandard
It’s easy to list how to spend, harder to do the raising funds part
Exactly, that's why I think it's important to make it clear that if extra money is needed then everyone has to assume that they will be taxed more.

Some of the stuff on this thread reminds me of the sentiment around charities. We all have causes we believe passionately in and champion. We moan that they should be better funded and be able to do more, but ultimately how many of us donate a significant percentage of our time or money to these causes? I'm not saying nobody does but the stark reality is, when it comes to it, the vast majority of us use our wealth and resources for the benefit of ourselves and our families. It is human nature!

So you may believe the NHS needs to be better funded but what percentage of your own salary are you personally willing to donate to the cause? Same with education and benefits?