Labour isn't working - Thread 9

[TheNuthatch]

A chat thread for those who don't like this Labour government.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5407977-labour-isnt-working-thread-8?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

I'm a bit confused about the taxi VAT. I did a quick Google, and it seems that taxis are already subject to VAT, although since many taxi drivers own their own car and are self-emoyed their income is below the VAT registration threshold, so they don't charge VAT.

What are they proposing? Decreasing the VAT threshold? But that would affect much more than taxis!

Or some kind of hidden employment law? Likewise wider-ranging consequences, and very complicated.

Or have I misunderstood something?

and me. But actually it’s made me feel scared and ashamed to just exist.
As a couple, like many, who were the first of our families to go to University for free from working class families and poverty stricken ancestors ( everything taken from us as Irish Catholics ) we climbed the ladder through hard work and thought we may at least be able to enjoy that and give our children what we never had.

Instead it’s being taken away, our money despised and hard work ignored. Our children denigrated because they were privately educated and sidelined for the children of others who sat on their arses at school and after because they were lazy.

I hear of how those kids are given lower offers for Uni and special provisions for civil service entry whilst ours have to work harder, again, to get at least a chance at the same.

Why isn’t hard work and achievement rewarded, why does this country reward the lazy.

Luckily as Irish we have Irish citizenship and can work elsewhere. My kids are already talking of it and I wouldn’t give a sidewards glance at this country if we left.

Who wants to live in a country that hates those who pay into it.

Thank you so much. It doesnt sit easily with me either. Turning upside down everything we expected for our futures and our Dcs future. I am already grieving in many ways. Driving to swimming yesterday morning in the pale gold early Autumn sunshine. My favourite season. I felt such sadness.

Worried about timings as well with DCs schooling. One is Year 11 and one Year 9.

@JustStopItNorasaurus Good luck with your move. I hope you and your family will be happier. It is tricky with timing when dc still at school. As Strawberry says, stay on here and we can keep you up to date with this government's shenanigans and remind you why you left.

We moved schools for two of ours just prior to the GCSE years and it was the best thing we did in the long run.

They’ve benefitted from becoming more independent, able to talk and make new friends easily
Those that stayed in the same schools with the same friends all their lives have struggled at Uni and struggle to make new friends and be ‘out there’.

We didn’t move countries but have friends who did a lot, as they followed their military parents around, and I’ve never met more confident individuals.

So I’d say this is a positive move for your kids aswell

As usual, the Law of unintended consequences is strong here.

I'm not sure how they would make it work for taxi drivers whose turnover is below the VAT threshold. This is the Telegraph article:

https://archive.ph/AlCie

Do they just impose an extra 20% tax on every journey regardless of taxi driver income?

So you just see it at point of paying rather than taxi driver registering for vat. No idea really how it works so just a Sunday type guess

So the taxis hit are the ones outside London + especially rural areas. Labour hate anyone who lives rurally, they are a London centric, metropolitan party. As long as it doesn't hit London they will have no qualms.
Their core voter base is now London. That's who they will protect.

I’ve heard the two child cap may be scrapped at a cost of £3.6billion
and
apparently pensioners have too much so some ‘advisors’ want the triple lock scrapped. ( sick of hearing this one thrown around all the time, it must be so so stressful for the elderly )

So more benefits for some and less for those who’ve worked and are too old to anymore.

There are no figures on potential saving to scrapping the triple lock but the last time it was suspended in 22/23 it reduced pensions by £5billion. [ That was however down to an unusual rise in salaries. ]

In purely financial terms It seems any savings in reduced pensions would therefore simply be wiped out by scrapping the 2child cap.

These two suggestions then have nothing to do with putting more money into the treasury and everything to do with an attempt at gaining popularity

I wonder if black cabs are included. I agree with you it’s so bad. I think black cabbies could strike if included, I wouldn’t blame them if they did.

And me.

I’ve gone from being genuinely happy to pay huge amounts of tax knowing that I was supporting society, to feel very much a sense of the opposite and looking to take action accordingly

I think they exclude black cabs??

A fair bit of common sense here, although I fear the damage is irreversible. I remember having a real sense of doom when Blair came to power in 1997.

"How to fix the broken British state"

https://archive.ph/fcMQ2

Yes it seems to be linked to the self-employed status. So uber has to pay VAT but self-employed one man band drivers currently don’t. However I dont understand how this would work in practice. Would the drivers have to create limited companies. It’s not clear.

You're right, it's not clear - and if the plan is for self-employed drivers to create limited companies most would probably throw in the towel.

All the scrapping of the 2 child cap will do is bring in the return of the professional baby makers. Those too lazy to work so have baby after baby who then leave them to run feral.
I agree some working families need help, however, there are better ways to target these families and pensioners for that matter, you just need to raise the lower tax rate, everyone wins and the government can scrap a lot of benefits. BUT! do that and there would be generations no longer dependent on the government and they don't want that.

Exactly.

@Pearlyjam

Also what cost is this doomed scheme to the tax payer? Are we chartering an entire plane just for one individual?

So far at least it looks like "one in, one out" has been facilitated by putting deportees (plus possibly escorts) on scheduled services with Air France, so no, HMG is not chartering an entire aircraft for that cohort of deportees.

@notimagain thank you - that's one small consolation I suppose. I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised though if it was just the deportee and their escort on each flight.

Imagine it’ll be a flat additional rate on taxi fayres? Like all their policies, they’re not thinking about the disabled, people living rurally etc.

yes, the fact that people seemed to be enjoying kids being taken out in critical exam years or the run up as ‘just desserts’ for ‘not saving and financial planning well’ or listening to the parents of kids with additional needs was a truly tide turning moment.

This government genuinely scare me. I’m sick of feeling terrified all of the time. Being governed by a man who clearly has complete apathy for anyone who doesn’t favour globalism makes my blood run cold.

It’s like a lot of Labour policies, they are positioning it all as an attack on privilege on behalf of the ‘working people’ but in every policy the net has been cast widely and the dogmatic sneering rhetoric has caught many people. Such dishonestly on who is being caught up.

underpinning all of it too is that taxes already started from historically very high rates on higher earners, so all this sneering as if we’ve all had years of rolling around in it and now the time to pay up has come is very out of step with any facts on tax.

Raising the lower tax rate would certainly save on UC admin and mean pensioners won’t be taxed on their pensions come 2026. So it does seem inevitable.

Id still like to see an increase on the shared 18 hours / week work requirement for UC.
18 hours / a couple is 9 hours each a week. Why only work 9 hours a week?!
Id like this increased to 30 hours each.
( blimey I must sound like a right cow 🤣, I’d never get elected )

Scrapping the 2 child benefit cap - allowing the feckless to ‘backfill’ to their hearts content. Whilst anybody but them, pays for it. I’ve actually heard people talk about ‘back filling’ with kids, to keep the money coming in. It’s not ‘hyperbole’ (a Labour MN favourite word), to say so.