I don't want to pay more fucking tax!

[marthainthemarket]

I am the sole earner in a family of four, earning just under 40k a year and getting probably fuck all or below inflation pay increase next year, if I am lucky enough to keep my job ( public sector and employer needing to make massive budget savings). I barely cope now.

I am so fucking angry that Labour fucked up the disability benefit cuts. Other countries don't have run away disability benefits crises because they have a proper assessment process that means they keep a lid on people getting disability benefits who don't really need them. But instead of dealing with that, they came up with a crap proposed cut that wouldn't have dealt with the actual issues and they couldn't defend.

And having fucked that up they are now raising everyone's tax. I hate them!

"They always pretend not to increase taxes - by saying that income tax hasn’t changed. But every other tax has gone up"

Income tax has been changed really- just in a less obvious way. The tax free allowance has been frozen for some time, so is worth far less today then a few years ago.

For a start the free movement earlier than other countries and the Iraq war obviously

hospitals on PIP

married man’s allowance even though it sounds antiquated

houses were more affordable

less immigration

No-one knows, they are leaking everything to see the reaction! There is no announcement on Friday, the budget is in 3 weeks which is also ridiculously late and has made it worse.

You do know the tories raised tax last time too yeah? And left record amounts of debt. This can't carry on. What has to come down is the cost of food/fuel/rent. I keep reading things like it's 30%, 40% higher. What I see in the shops is that it is 100% higher than a couple years ago, in some cases 120% higher. The UK has become stupidly expensive for all apart from the very wealthy 1%.

Wasn’t the biggest immigration year 2004? During Blair’s tenure?

You just illustrated my point nicely!

Yes

From Reeves’ demeanour this morning we know it won’t be good.

They’re succeeding at giving businesses paralysis. They’ve done this several times now, which makes businesses put investment decisions on hold.

I disagree. This isn’t ancient history. The cause of our current troubles can be traced directly back to this. How we move forward is by leaning from recent mistakes.

No dont think so, much higher in 2022-ish afaik.

Wasn’t the biggest immigration year 2004? During Blair’s tenure?

Nope 2023. Net migration was Something like 900k.

OP is right. Labour are corrupt and always have been. Have people forgot how they almost bankrupted the country last time they were in power? We have never recovered. To Labour, anyone who works for a living is responsible for those who don’t due to their ‘human rights’. Never mind if they are claiming fraudulently, you can’t say that as the disability rights groups said so! No common sense whatsoever. Look ar the state of the County now with uncontrolled migration and violent crime, huge swathes of the population choosing a life on benefits cos they can, all untaxed no matter the amount and no bills to pay. They can bring in £2000-£3000 a month with all bills still covered. It’s ok as benefits and the NHS will be no more very soon thanks to being abused. A far right or far left society are both grotesque and lacking in common sense! Should be fairness for all!

No, don't think so.

Taxes will rise. They have because the elephant in the room is Brexit and Britain's post-Brexit strategy. The Tories who brought us Brexit didn't have one, but they spent profligately and Truss pushed us over the edge.

The UK now has to raise its own money, invest it wisely and embark on a sustainable Post-Brexit growth plan.

@Fairyladyonwheels but a large amount of these claimants will be working !

And we all seem to forget that there are multi-millionaires, billionaires and massively profitable companies who aren’t paying anywhere near as much tax as they should be. Sweetheart deals with HMRC or veiled threats to the government that they’ll take their business elsewhere means they get off scot-free. Why isn’t there more anger about that?

Quite agree.
The benefits system is totally skewed.
I have a friend who likes in a beautiful 4 bedroom house (think show home) and has a brand new car but because she is sadly widowed and earning below a certain threshold (her income is deliberate) she gets benefits which to me is crazy!

Indeed.

Also @cardibach

Bank of England Independance

Devolution - who knows what a state we would be in if Scotland and Wales didn’t at least feel some Governance.

City Mayors

Massive reduction in homelessness.

Savings amount given to all New Borns which has appreciated over the passed 20 years. Gave me impetus to save and top up a bit and has been good for my DD now she’s received it.

General feeling of global statesmanship.
However I do agree the Iraq war was a disaster and I marched against it. The context of the time and just after 9/11 did make us very much in the pockets of the US though.

I just remember their government being a great time for me personally and very busy and productive once they came into power.

Labour caused the 2008 financial crisis ?!

In all honesty, can you not look at some facts? How can you blame Labour for all these ills when they've been in power less than 18months? Totally unreasonable of you and please do not lie.

INTERNATIONAL banking crisis was pretty much caused by the USA. By the way, Gordon Brown and the way he handled it was later admired by other European leaders. This was not Labours fault.

Debt is far far higher now than ever, this is Tory's fault. The tories raised taxes too and everything is broken, everything - apart from their rich friends huge bank accounts that robbed us of our money. THIS is corruption.

Immigration is far higher now than when Labour were in. We left the EU, ending the agreement Blair did with free movement. The tories granted visas to other nationalities to plug the work gap but they were granted in far higher numbers afaik, coming up to a million in their final years in power - without fixing what they broke, instead actually cutting funding. By the way, vast majority of this IS controlled.

Labour - at least their spending left the NHS working well at point of use. Last time I remember long waiting lists was back in the 80's when the Tories last had a massive long stretch of running the country. I remember Labour bringing in min waiting times and after a few years those were hit. It massively improved under Labour at point of use for you and me. Yeah, it cost some money to fix it, but the tories managed to beak it in 14 short years.

You want fairness for all? Do you really mean that, or you just don't want immigrants?

The fact is that if we want better services, we have to pay for them. People are quite happy to moan about the state of the country but instantly start protesting when they're asked to pay a few extra quid.

Nor do I. Reeves is just so useless. 🙄