So what change would people like to see in this country - given people seem to want change and are fed up with the pace of change?

[cakeorwine]

That seems to be the message from people in the recent elections.

Clearly immigration - controlled or uncontrolled is an issue for some / many people and the impact on local communities

But apart from that, what other changes do people want to see that are not being delivered?

I know that housing is a massive issue. Affordable places to live
Job opportunities in a local area
People being able to stay where they live instead of being forced to relocate
NHS waiting times, seeing a GP quickly, seeing a dentist who is NHS
Cost of living - life is expensive for many people. How can life be made more affordable for people who are struggling?
Run down town centres, too much shoplifting and a feeling that people are getting away with crime

What changes do you want to see happening?

Major investment.

Investment in councils, public services, transport, training, education, NHS, industry, the North and so on.

I bought in 2019 but my flat has dropped 10k in price since 2015 (1930s, residents own the freehold, in leafy z3 suburb of London), stayed around the same as in 2015. My friend in Coventry has a flat that has gone up only 15k since 2008... which was 17 years ago. I know another guy who bought a flat which is 50% of its 08 value. There are lots of properties all over the country which had barely had any increases esp when adjusted for inflation. It's certain types of properties mainly houses in london and the south which have above inflation increases but they are not the whole housing market

Perhaps it's not the house prices but the wages.... for me housing is the most affordable thing even in London, what is difficult is having to pay 700 quid for dh's medicine and consultations as he is on a waiting list on nhs as well as childcare costs.

Pay out compensation for contaminated blood now. Government is still stalling.

I also think it all began with taking money from mental health. We now have a huge amount of the population with undiagnosed issues, mental health traumas going back years and no way to properly assess or help them because we defunded the entire sector.

If you go back to why NHS waiting lists are so long, much of it is down to MH meaning people don't attend GP soon enough so issues get worse, end up using hospital far more than they should due to MH issues not being properly assessed and nowhere else to go
It's what our emergencies services spend a lot of time dealing with
It is why so many are out of work and off with long term sickness that manifests as physical illness - including obesity

We've now got the internet picking these people up and offering them misogyny and suicide as options to deal with the pain and trauma and we have enabled our kids to use this as a crutch because we have no MH for them.

Companies should not be allowed to make more than 10x profit of the lowest paid employee. Anything after that should be taxed at 75%. This would encourage business to bring up their employees when the business is doing well, instead of just creaming all the profits and still leaving employees on minimum wage.

Housing is the big one. Working hard and not being able to buy anything close to your family is driving families apart. It’s sad the prices in much of the UK is so high and renting is just as bad too.

• changes to tax brackets

• Clamp down on tax evasion - get the big multinationals to pay their fair share in the UK.
  Reverse the NI change on businesses.

• Much higher tax on UPF to then subsidise home grown produce

*Re-nationalise water and railways or find a way to hold them to account - no dividends allowed to be paid unless deliver on service

*Reduce waste at a local level - a friend has recently started receiving £280 per week from the council as they can't provide transport for him to school. He could get the bus but the road is deemed too dangerous for him to cross. What an epic waste of money

*Speed up processing of asylum seekers

*Increase police presence in communities

*Make town centres more appealing - reduce business rates, limits on certain types of businesses. All businesses should have to accept digital payments. Planning regulations to place limits on types of signage etc so that it conforms to area aesthetics to make centres more visually appealing.

*Improved sports and leisure facilities in local areas

• Massive investment in education. Shake the curriculum to reflect requirements of modern day with vocational schools as well as academic ones.

*Reopen sure start

Biggest problem in this country is too many people taking out of the tax system and not enough people paying in. Solve that and the rest solves itself.

Bring back grants not loans for key worker careers. With a clause that they can’t emigrate for at least 5 years after graduating.
Educate people on good mental health and self esteem before they get ill.
Bring back cottage hospitals for the elderly with excellent care and condition.
Higher inheritance tax over a certain threshold.
More incentives for people to get back into work and stay in work (move off benefits)
More options for younger people to live in affordable housing. Small pods , green communes . Not grotty HMO’s
More education of people to put back into society in what ever way they can and would be happy doing not just thinking of themselves.
More Ev cars , solar panels on private and social housing.
Turn boats away of illegal immigrants and anyone committing a crime after coming here to be sent home.
I have been observing what this Labour government have been doing and I think the winter fuel allowance is not popular but a high percentage of recipients don’t actually need it . My mum in a care home for example ! People don’t like paying more tax but how do they expect the government to pay for better services? The same goes for disability cuts . It isn’t healthy for young people to go on these benefits at a young age and be forgotten about.
i hope that we will start to see an improvement to the NHS and people won’t dread A and E as it is so hellish. I am glad the drs got the pay increase.

100% this!

Scrap the NI increase - I’m not hiring 3 people this year because of it and instead using freelancers (still in the UK)

Free education for those wanting to study to be nurses/doctors/dentists - with a clause that they have to pay it back if they work under 10 years in the UK

Increase the tax bracket for high earners - it does not pay to work hard. Doctors and dentists are working part time just to keep them under the threshold. People shouldn’t be punished for working.

Allowing mortgages to those who have paid rent consistently for 2 years - proving they can make monthly payments (but find it difficult to save any extra)

Deport criminals

Invest in policing/prison system so that people who steal cars or from shops are actually punished - when people aren’t punished it makes the rest of society very angry and breeds a ‘what’s the point of me working hard when xyz gets away with thieving’

Government grants and help for small businesses. Tax incentives for those who employ. Labour are pro employees and big business, tories are pro big business - none of them give a shit about small businesses

Remove VAT on private schools

Black books - but that might mean that a massive company with 1000s of employees could only make a profit of £150,000!! There’d be no point in ever growing any business! You’d destroy the stock market and everyone’s pensions!

Biggest problem in this country is too many people taking out of the tax system and not enough people paying in. Solve that and the rest solves itself.

You want to cull older people?!

Unfortunately people s wants are unrealistic, they want platinum services for bronze payments! Either we need to get more tax revenue from more people working/earning more income or we need to live with what we have.

many of us are higher earners and quite willing to pay taxes at current levels but to earn more money as a country you need to get more people earning

many of us are higher earners and quite willing to pay taxes at current levels but to earn more money as a country you need to get more people earning

we need to raise tax on everyone not just workers.

Infrastructure improvements. It’s hard enough to travel around our cities, nevermind between them.

Massive tax cuts, targeted at ordinary working people in order to put money back in people’s pockets, tackle the cost of living crisis & get the economy growing by increasing the spending power of consumers.

Paid for by… Massive benefit cuts, with much stronger incentives to work for those who can. The complete withdrawal of benefit entitlements to people who claim to have anxiety, depression & spurious illnesses such as ‘long covid’.

Cutting immigration by at least 90%. Some immigrants would still be allowed to come to the U.K. (eg financiers, senior executives, sportspeople etc) but a minimum salary requirement of at least £100k or ownership of assets of at least £1m would be imposed. Combined with mass forced deportation of illegal immigrants. This would obviously require the repeal of some human rights laws & rejection of the jurisdiction of foreign courts.

A mass house building program, the objective of which would be to return house purchase affordability to mid 1990s levels. This would require tens of thousands of skilled tradespeople, so I would introduce fully funded, paid training courses for the workers required to build them. The scale of building necessary would require fundamental reform of current planning laws, abolition of green belts etc.

I agree with a lot of the comments on here.

Most taxpayers are fed up with stagnating salaries and frozen tax bands. Combined with high cost of living, there is a reducing quality of life.

They need to reduce taxes and goverment/council spending.

Cutting immigration by at least 90%. Some immigrants would still be allowed to come to the U.K. (eg financiers, senior executives, sportspeople etc) but a minimum salary requirement of at least £100k or ownership of assets of at least £1m would be imposed. Combined with mass forced deportation of illegal immigrants. This would obviously require the repeal of some human rights laws & rejection of the jurisdiction of foreign courts.

How would the NHS and social care function?

We have an ageing population, taxes cannot be cut!!!

"The state pension bill reached £124.1billion in 2023/24 and is projected to rise to £169.4billion by 2029/30. This represents a 143 per cent increase since 2010/11, or just over seven per cent annually over two decades."

And people think we can cut taxes whilst improving services 🤔

All of this.

Immigration

More or less?

After reading the thread, compulsory maths lessons until the age of 30.