To ask those who voted for the conservatives ....

[ginorwine]

Reading the threads here there is much criticism about conservative policy .
A lot of people must have voted for them .
Where are they on mums net ?
And on threads such as those re the w t c cuts are they not representing their views as it was clear this would happen ?
I can tell that they may be slated but surley differing views can be expressed so long as it doesn't get nasty - a know that feeling run high but surley ppl can do so .
So to Tory voters -is it how you anticipated .what are your views ?

I think its fair to say there was a fair bit of "misinformation" prior to the election, just look at the language Cameron used on Question Time about working tax credits, claiming to be the party of working people, blaming Labour spending for the state of the economy etc.

That is a lot of misinformation, and people bought into it. I'm not sure what else you could call it.

Lurker - on Labour Party schisms, perhaps I should have distinguished between the wider Labour party and the Parliamentary Labour Party. The former did overwhelmingly vote Labour, but the latter absolutely did not and Corbyn's support within the PLP is very fragile. By all accounts the meeting where Watson announced his U-turn on the fiscal charter was so heated that the journalists waiting outside could hear the shouting. Andy Burnham described it as 'a total fucking shambles'.

It's a challenging situation for a Labour Party leader to be in: commanding the support of his grassroots to a far greater extent than of his MPs. I'm a bit of a politics junkie so am following it with great interest: though I'm not a party member, I rooted for him as Labour leader as I think this country desperately needs a broader political debate with more ideological variety, against the stultifying centrist consensus that has emerged in the last decade or so. (So far I'm not blown away by his performance, but it's early days yet so I'm still hoping.)

Sorry, that should read 'The former absolutely did vote for Corbyn, but the latter absolutely did not'.

I once had a Tory voter on here tell me that hot water and heating was a luxury for a social housing tenant

Grew up in a council house with no heating no hot water no bathroom, and an outside toilet. We washed our hair by sticking our head down the loo and flushing the chain. Kitchen was a belfast sink balanced on bricks. There was no tax credits no benefits etc 10 people (4 couples and 2 children) living in a (2 bedrooms 1 box room) house. Everyone went out to work at what ever would bring in a few quid. It took 10 years to save up enough money to get us a house big enough for everyone to have their own room. Our next door neighbour had 3 brothers and their wives and kids living there. They saved up enough to buy a car then in 8 hour shifts they took the car out as a taxi.

Friends dd was moaning how she couldn't find a job and had no money. I pointed out to her they wanted someone at the local launderette. Not great money but it was a job and she could always then get a part time job in the pub who I knew were also looking for people, not to mention the load of other small jobs that I see advertised in local shops wanting people for the odd day here and there. Any one would have thought that I had suggested she behead kittens the way she looked at me. Then she started on about what benefits she would lose if she took the positions.

Maybe that is how the Tories are helping the poor. Making it so that those that can work are not checking up on how much benefits they would lose if they took a job and just encouraging people to get out and get on with it.

.

On who pays the most tax, actually it depends how you measure it.

The Guardian will tell you that the poorest pay more tax, proportionately, than the rich: 8% more as a proportion of their income than the richest.

The Telegraph and Spectator, on the other hand, will tell you that the highest earners pay a quarter of all income tax and that George Osborne has extracted more money from the rich than any UK Chancellor ever.

The thing is, both are probably true. Where the debate lies, in my view, is as follows. Given that the Laffer curve shows that taxation beyond a certain proportion of income tends to produce diminishing or even negative returns, do you tax the rich more heavily in the interests of 'fairness' ^even if in fact it produces lower yields of tax money, or 2) tax the rich less and get more money out of them, so you have more money to spend on public services even if it looks less fair? That, as they say, is politics.

The Laffer curve has generally been disregarded, it does makes general sense though.

The problem with the quarter of all income tax is that income tax is only 25% of the tax take, a much larger part of the tax take comes from VAT and things like duty which the poorest spend proportionally more of their income on. So proportionally (being the operative word) the burden of taxation lies heaviest on the poor.

Personal levels of taxation aren't even at a high right now, even in the early days of Thatcher it was far higher on those on the largest incomes. As previously stated those earning the most rely on society more to facilitate their earning so they need to pay in more.

That's the only relvant point - what impact the tax rate has. I feel I pay far far too much tax. Someone in the press recently was saying increase in the personal allowance (to help tax credit claimants) helps the rich. It doesn't. We have been stripped of all personal tax allowance. Never in British history have the highest paid paid such a high percentage of the tax generated. I expect no one to weep any tears for me of course. That is not human nature. But the bottom line is tax people like I am too much and you generate less not more tax from us and there is then less for the less fortunate. So it is not as simple as taxing the rich until the pips squeak. My brother stopped working at weekends as an NHS doctor when his tax rate went over 50% - for him the balance then moved to spending time with his children. However now he's set up a company (lawful avoidance) to reduce tax paid - a direct result of high tax rates.

I can work anywhere with an internet connection and with children leaving school soon I might if tax gets even higher. The fact I have to pay £300k stamp duty just to swap may house for the same in a different place is a massive deterrent too to just moving within the UK. We are taxed to the hilt.

Long time lurker

I don't find you condescending at all. I find your posts very interesting and balanced. You manage to put into words what I want to say and feel

Keep up the good work!

My point wasn't really to get into a debate on the rights and wrongs of a particular policy on taxation. It was more to illustrate the way different political stances can interpret the same set of data to argue entirely opposing points. The political debate is generally in the nuance of how you tax to wring the most from people, or how to do it to send the 'right' moral message - at least it is within the centrist consensus we've become used to.

A less frequently heard position on the business of taxation is that overall the state should take less of people's money and meddle less in people's lives. Though it might not seem so if you only read The Guardian and The New Statesman, that's a subject of energetic debate even within the Conservative Party. Cameron and co are often depicted in left-wing commentary as savage destroyers of public spending and ravening public spending hawks. However within his own party he's regarded as quite the opposite: a 'wet' Tory who has talked up a the cuts to assuage the deficit hawks in his party, but actually implemented very few of them.

Many on the right of the Tory party think the state should be far, far smaller - but it's well recognised by the pragmatists in the party that on the whole the British public quite likes the welfare state. Really, truly hacking the state right back would appeal only to a tiny minority of voters. So on the basis that they'd like to be re-elected, the sort of cuts that would appeal to the real devotees of small government are never going to happen.

Just as a footnote on taxing the rich until the pips squeak, there's a recent well-documented example of how that works in practice just over the Channel in France.

"Never in British history have the highest paid paid such a high percentage of the tax generated.|"

That's not true! In 1980 the tax paid by the rich was far higher, 60 odd percent as the highest rate at 95% on unearned income!

So your brother stopped working when his tax rate on over £150 k went above 50%? Only the bit on £150 K rememeber not 50% of all, its incremental.

Do you expect anyone to feel sympathy for you when you whine about paying £300, 000 stamp duty, when that means your house purchase is over £3,000,000?

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/budget-2015-great-tax-giveaway-rich-masquerading-help-poor

Raising the tax rate benefits the poorest 20% by£28 a year, but the richest by £448, so your statement about it not benefiting the rich is untrue.

A less frequently heard position on the business of taxation is that overall the state should take less of people's money and meddle less in people's lives

Not just taxation, but generally. However, we all want laws "for the children" (always to protect other people, never us) and so just add to the pile.

NuLan bought in 10 new laws a day for ages. How many did they repeal ?

That's not true! In 1980 the tax paid by the rich was far higher, 60 odd percent as the highest rate at 95% on unearned income!

Yes, but we're not talking about tax rates here, we're talking about total tax take. I don't have any figures for the proportion of total tax take paid by the wealthiest 10% (say) in 1980, as compared to the tax paid by the wealthiest 10% today so I can't argue that one way or the other. But if you have a reference for this showing that the proportion of tax paid by the wealthiest was higher in 1980 I'd be interested to see it (not sarcastic, would genuinely be interested).

I also don't advocate higher tax rates for the wealthy, I advocate them actually having to pay it, and corporations for that matter. The Tax gap is £38 billion ( at a conservative estimate, others put it far, far higher).

Manatee we would all like less state interferences but to pull the rug from under us is wrong.

I work in recruitment and salaries I work with have barely moved in 20 years. A PA with a few years experience was paid £25 in 1995. Same as today! So nowadays that PA would have to claim TC whereas if salaries had increased as profits have TC wouldn't be needed.

This needs to be addressed first before the government take money away from the lowest paid.

Lurking - FWIW I agree with you that I'd like to see the state (of whatever political affiliation) meddling less in people's lives. Sadly the greatest disappointment I've had with the Cameron administration is that it's continued exactly the kind of philosophy of petty interference and 'politics of behaviour' as we had under Blair. Not to mention some unnervingly authoritarian measures around extremism and union action.

£25k that should say!

ThruUlike - I agree with much of what you say. Unfortunately many of the major factors contributing to the flattening of low-to middle-income salaries is beyond the control of any government, left or right, as it's caused by globalisation. Effectively more and more of our jobs are competing not just with others in this country but with others across the whole world.

Graphic design and software development are good examples: not so long ago, you could make good money as a freelance graphic designer, but these days people can use Elance to hire someone in India or Bulgaria to make a logo for £20, so there goes your day rate.

To make matters worse, more and more of the work that used to be done by clerical employees is being done by computers: for example the clerk in a legal firm who used to archive, manage and retrieve physical client folders has in many cases been replaced or mostly replaced by a search algorithm.

Then there's greater global mobility, which enables bright and talented people to move to wherever the employment opportunities look most promising, which leads to greater salary competition.

No government, whether left or right-wing, can do much about any of these factors. The big scandal in my view is that neither right nor left is being honest with the electorate about what's actually going on, and how much power they actually don't have to affect any of this.

Manatee, and as I said of the total tax take only 25 % is income tax, far more is taken in VAT.

Actually VAT had to be increased when the higher rates of tax were lowered, it has to be made up somewhere.

Good point ThruULike. I think the stagnation of wages over the last 30 years is a big, big deal.

Wages have been stagnating since the 1970's, well middle wages have. During this period though dividends and higher rate salaries have gone through the roof. There is a transfer of wealth from poor to rich going on, and has been for decades.

Lurker - so do you have figures for the overall tax take in 1980, broken down by income bracket, as opposed to now? Very interested to see a comparison.

As a percentage of GDP its roughly the same, but as income taxes are lower at the highest level I'd suggest that more was paid by the wealthiest back then.

Do you have a reference?

Guardian data blog.