Thread 15 Starmer - Nolite te bastardes carborundorum

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5244293-thread-14-starmer-the-starmeristas-strike-back?page=40&reply=141334312

Didn’t we have Northern Powerhouse then levelling up ? Mmm that went well. Making deprived towns bid against each other.

And give the money to wealthier ones, Sunak style

“If the top 1% leave for Dubai, it doesn't mean the govt loses all that money.
The next 1% down just get promoted into their positions and everyone shuffles up a bracket, or the businesses they work for redistribute the pay among the remaining workforce, or hire a load more staff for the cost of the one lost from the top.”

That doesn’t work in reality. The top earners with experience are not easily replaced and they are usually paid so much, because they raise more than that for the business. If you cannot replace them easily, you simply get worse growth. You cannot just promote a Registrar to Consultant without the necessary experience or a senior lawyer to partner level etc or a director to managing director level. If they do not have the necessary expertise, the whole business suffers.

So are you saying there’s nothing we can do, we just let wage inequality grow and grow without asking the top 1% (or even 5%) to help out in line with their wealth? Businesses just do what they want? Because that really doesn’t work.

I was sad people fell for that. I guess they were desperate

Just another Johnson lie; levelling up, oven ready deal, 40 new hospitals

@cardibach - you are still not understanding. The reason the wage inequality is growing is because businesses in London have to pay that extra to hire the workers. Then the state taxes 60% marginal rates and they end up having to pay even more. There comes a point, where they move offshore. I think we may have reached that point. I am not saying it is right or wrong, but they should have never allowed so much foreign investment and buying up London property. It is going to harm us all long term.
And yes I agree that why are those businesses not moving to other cities. I suppose many rely on airports and international travel. That is one example I can think of.
There is no denying that we rely on London succeeding economically. Whether anyone agrees with that or not, is a separate matter.

There are so many excellent university cities throughout the country. Someone really should be able to come up with a plan of growth around those. The point to nab the best students and give them jobs locally is straight out of university.

I'm understanding that, yes. That the top few % of the population have been allowed to become so entitled. I asked your solution.

The students don’t necessarily want a job near where they studied though.

More taxpayer's money that can be used so much better

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/prince-william-duchy-millions-prison-zdtgkv6t2

Dartmoor jail that pays Duchy £1.5m a year may never reopen Riddled with rats, HMP Dartmoor, which closed in August over toxic gas fears, has 24 years left on its lease

The Duchy of Cornwall, the estate which provides a private income for Prince William, owns HMP Dartmoor and leases it to the MoJ

The solution to stopping millionaires and young professionals/doctors leaving the country? Is that what you are asking?
If another country offers a better quality of life and better income/wealth prospects, people with choices leave (the wealthy, the young and talented).

There are no solutions. You have to assess the competition. And compete.

Students move to where the best job prospects are and often if they are very happy in a university town and if job prospects there were good, many would stay.

No, I’m asking how we get away from this entitled attitude that the top earners shouldn’t contribute proportionately.

"In 2017, the number of individuals living in the United Kingdom (UK) with a net worth of over one million U.S. dollars excluding the value of their primary residence was roughly 2.43 million people. This number steadily increased reaching almost three million people in 2022, with forecasts for the growth to continue. "
from Statista.

3 million 'dollar millionaires'.
10,000 of them left last year - this seems like a very small proportion of the overall total.

The elite are clearly very mobile, maybe now more than ever, and heading to Switzerland, Italy and UAE etc.

They are specifically choosing to go to low tax systems.
Given our debt and a decade of under investment in public services how exactly should we compete?

i suppose there will be another round of politicians telling us we should trust in 'trickle down' economics - exactly what Farage is selling.

www.statista.com/statistics/1416513/number-of-high-net-worth-individuals-one-million-uk/

Equality they’d go anywhere. And many want to go back to their home area, so building other centres in university towns doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Some students will stay in their university town as they do now. Some will find that ties from home, friendships, community, belonging draw them back as they do now.

Ds1 was at university in London, lots of opportunities there for him, but hated the idea of having to spend years in a claustrophobic city. He spends hours outdoors in the hills and open spaces. That's more valuable than money.

Surely the aim should be to have an economy that can sustain graduates wherever they are.

“No, I’m asking how we get away from this entitled attitude that the top earners shouldn’t contribute proportionately.”

@cardibach - but they do. They lose the personal allowance over 100k and other benefits and there is even a threshold above which you cannot contribute more than 10k grossed up into a pension per year. They are paying more tax in this country than in many other countries.

We compete with Dubai not on tax, but quality of life, culture, history, tradition, diversity, freedom of speech and most important, what used to be a stable political environment and the prestige of living in this country.
When you remove some of the aspects, you are no longer competitive. And taxation has to be proportionate so if the remaining countries start attracting the best workers who create the most wealth, then you have to rethink and adjust your systems.

The example above given was with doctors not getting through their full training due to shortages of places. Allowing that to happen is just completely unacceptable. A successful private business would never train its trainees at huge cost and then let them go very close before the end. They would adjust the final hurdles in the training immediately and would make cuts elsewhere or ask the most senior to take some of the burden. There are huge inefficiencies in this country in so many things that could get sorted out if there were long term thinking and the will to do things.

This was the promise of the last administration with "levelling up" and the "northern powerhouse" and various other buzzwords that amounted to nothing. We do have our mayor, now but her budget is already being eaten up by fixing the dangerously degraded roads and bridges that enable people to travel to work in the first place.

I don't think we can compete with Dubai. Many of my contemporaries have however departed for it. From their perspective, it is much less hassle and safer than London.

It's not for me but if you are chasing money and have the qualifications it is an easy and lucrative move.

Numbers of doctor training places is a totally different thing - and is nuts, I agree.
We'll have to agree to disagree on tax for the top earners. Yes, they pay a lot. But they still retain a lot. They can have a fantastic life on what’s left. It’s pure entitlement and selfishness not to want to contribute and to think moving to a place like Dubai built on slavery is better illustrates this perfectly.

Many students go back home. They can't afford not to. The stats on boomerang children reveal this.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-likely-lose-nearly-one-six-millionaires-by-2028-report-says-2024-07-10/

That is quite a balanced article on the loss of millionaires. When you look at all the other countries forecasted to grow, it does not inspire confidence. It simply looks like a country people are pulling their wealth out from. And that should be a concern and not minimised.

Britain was also built on exploitation in the colonies so we hardly have the moral high ground over Dubai, historically speaking.
Dubai are clever, they have introduced all sorts of cultural pulls and are now going all out on things like private education. They seem to understand that the rich and successful seek the rich and successful. The crime rate there is far far lower than here. For young professionals who just want to work hard and save with young kids it can be a strong pull.