Jeremy Corbyn

[salcombebabe]

I see so many posters saying they won’t vote for Labour as they don’t like Jeremy Corbyn - why? If the Labour policies are good then why not vote for those rather than the leader?

Doesn't change the fact he made racist comments of course. Would love you're - I mean, your - thoughts on that bit.

You trying to straw man and being a snarky pedant does not invalidate the precis of my comment.

Nor does it distract from you trying to apply whataboutism with the source you provided, feel free to try and play an appeal to authority, but it isn't me pulling blogs as evidence that others 'need to read' and pretend others are reading biased sources.

The FT reported that roughly there was 1 - 10 x difference in incomes between rich and poor but that in the UKthat comes down to 1 - 4 when the biggest tax burden on the highest earners in British history is taken account of - 45% tax and 2% NI

The large disparity between the bottom 10% of households to the top 10% is not in income but wealth. From an IPPR economic report, “The wealthiest 10 per cent of households own more than 900 times the wealth of the poorest 10 per cent, and five times more than the entire bottom half...Wealth is much more unequally distributed than income: whereas the median income in the top 10 per cent is around seven times the median income in the bottom 10 per cent, the median wealth of the top 10 per cent is 315 times the median in the bottom 10 per cent (see figure 12.1).”

Also from the report, “In the UK, the largest single driver of rising wealth inequality has been rising land and property prices, which for two decades have grown far faster than earnings”.

I really wish people would stop with the throwaway comments and actually realise the 'rich' now pay more than they used to

Well, as they own increasingly a larger share of the nation’s wealth, I would expect they pay more tax than before. Also the poorest pay a larger proportion of tax on their income.

Also analysis has shown the poorest 10 per cent of households in the UK pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than the richest 10 per cent.

Officials statistics show the lowest tenth of earners pay an average of 42 per cent of their income in the form of income tax, national insurance, VAT and council tax.

In contrast, the richest 10 per cent around a third (about 34%) their earnings go to the taxman, according to analysis by The Equality Trust.

Yet more difficult to implement solutions - difficult to tax wealth except on a transaction like inheritance etc. A pensioner in a mortgage free house might be wealthy but nowhere near the top of the income distribution.

Very well off people, English, Indian, Russian, Chinese etc who own many expensive properties in the U.K. own them through trusts and companies, usually, but not always in tax havens. Corbyn and his communists are going to have to spend a lot of money on lawyers to get this off them.

Mr Jones with a £500k house can’t afford to defend himself against their evil policies.

After the shambolic Brexit referendum The Conservatives & LibDems so called leaders for their sheds in the hills. Corbyn has been the only one who stayed and tried to make a difference
He’s been abused ridiculed but still he stays & tries
I’m not a traditional labour voter but I cannot see why he has been disproportionately targeted by the bbc & press when the dodgy exploits of the likes of Johnson Gove May Hunt Hill etc are ignored
I cannot think of a single thing this shambolic Tory government has done well ... except lie , raise the death rate ,sell anything that’s not nailed down , take away hope diversity and equality . I am disgusted by their attitude policies & lack of integrity

Ok fine. Let Trump get hold of your NHS. Listen to biased shit about antisemitism (for every link that accuses him, there’s one where Jewish people think it’s a load of shit).

Very well off people, English, Indian, Russian, Chinese etc who own many expensive properties in the U.K. own them through trusts and companies, usually, but not always in tax havens. Corbyn and his communists are going to have to spend a lot of money on lawyers to get this off them.

That’s a good point and these very rich people are not going to give up their properties without a massive fight.
East Germany were quite clever: if they discovered someone owned a very valuable painting or jewel or whatever, rather than just confiscate it they sent the owner a huge tax bill so he/she was forced to sell the valuable item to pay the tax.
I’m sure Corbyn and his comrades have got plenty of tricks like that up his sleeve though he’ll find it harder to deal with overseas property owners.

all this said, you can't help but feel Corbyn has asked relevant questions about society. I was dispirited by the Green Party spending commitments today - all borrowing, and only tax rises on corporations. Yet more othering. We've got rampant nationalism in Scotland and England warring with each other, labour pretending there are idle rich they can easily catch for their plans and the tories demonising whoever the work shy are supposed to be. And now the greens come along with some interesting ideas but again with some magic solution.

I'd be tempted to vote for the green programme due to the elephant in the room climate emergency but we've got to stop this constant idea that someone other than us is going to pay for changes, we're all in it together and we all need to pay for and buy into solutions.

I would be happy to pay a £30k a year tax on my house if income tax and NI, stamp duty and inheritance tax were abolished. In other words if we move to taxing owned assets that's fine as long as we stop having to pay all the other direct taxes too. the worry is labour will do both.

By the way the Tories have already added a lot of tax on foreign owners - there is now even for British people a tax called ATED - an annual tax on enveloped dwellings - home owned within a company or trust. Stamp duty is I think 15% if you buy something wrapped in a company too. And anyone with a second home now pays 3% extra stamp duty on top when they buy it (nor surprisingly the Tories have found since they put up stamp duty what they receive from it has gone down).

@Xenia I’d love it if they moved away from stamp duty too - it’s keeping people in bad decisions and introducing market frictions that don’t need to be there, whereas the US property tax doesn’t have the same cost associated with moving.

I fear we’ll get all of the above though - can’t see this Labour Party caring about making the housing market less moribund!

But see Scotland, stamp duty is seen as a stealth wealth tax, lbtt is even crazier here. Governments love their transaction based wealth taxes as so easy to administer

@bottleofbeer, it's possible to dislike the sainted Jeremy AND the wicked Boris at the same time.

Oh, and 86% of British Jews polled last year thought Corbyn was an anti-Semite. But obviously they have been duped by the smear campaign and 'the biased shit about antisemitism' and have no idea what it looks like in the raw.

LIKE Boris? Oh god, I’ve just had a dose of the vapours.

You don’t have to like Corbyn to vote for a fairer society for all.

I can hear an orchestra playing to the background of my post.

“it's possible to dislike the sainted Jeremy AND the wicked Boris at the same time.“
Of course. It’s also possible to be a Labour voter and not like Corbyn or think him a good leader.

I’ve been accused of antisemitism because I don’t support Israel.

Am I antisemitic? No.

I'm not what you'd describe as a left winger (I have occasionally voted Tory in the past), but I surprise myself at actually warming to John McDonnell, despite him being potentially even to the left of Corbyn. He actually seems more ideologically flexible, open minded and pragmatic, even though he is clearly socialist.

Makes me think that my true objection to Corbyn is just the sheer incompetence.

I don't support Israel can be mean several things. I don't support many of the actions of the Israeli government, but no one has ever called me an anti-Semite.

Oh i was properly ganged up on, on Facebook. Jewish ‘friend’ got all her friends to pile in to accuse me.

So, that’s a lot of people accusing me based on nothing. I’m not leader of the opposition either.

Anyway, just imagine the delectable Keir sorting Brexshit!!

McDonnell has some pretty dreadful policies. Even the 4 day working week which might sound like a doss for some will not be good for the country.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McDonnell#Economic_policy

but I surprise myself at actually warming to John McDonnell, despite him being potentially even to the left of Corbyn. He actually seems more ideologically flexible, open minded and pragmatic, even though he is clearly socialist
I like him too. I think he comes across far better than Corbyn. He can argue his point to his opponents, even hard left ones. Corbyn is less than useless.

Wealth inequality fell for most of the twentieth century, as economic growth allowed lower income groups to accumulate savings and buy homes. But since the 1980s, inequality has been rising again in almost all developed economies. If you support a society that spreads wealth and ownership more widely than currently then there needs to be strategies to distribute wealth across the nation better than now. It is claimed that rapidly rising land and property values have diverted investment and lending away from more productive uses, with banks in particular increasing the proportion of their overall lending going into real estate.

Although housing is not the only factor that has increased the extremely large gap in wealth between households, the large rise in land values does need to be tackled in the long term. A housing crash is not the answer as that will bring a lot of suffering but policies that may help house prices to rise more slowly in the coming years are needed in my view. The construction of more houses is one thing that needs encouraging both in the private and social sector. The cap on local authority borrowing to finance house building in England should be abolished. A report I read pointed out the Netherlands and Germany both use compulsory purchase laws to allow local authorities and public bodies to buy land at its ‘use value’ prior to planning permission where the value shoots up, plus a degree of some compensation. Also the same report recommended sale of public land to the private sector for residential development should in most circumstances be ended. Public ownership offers a relatively simple way of ensuring that land is used for affordable housing. It also provides a way for the public to share in any rise in value.

Then the plan to take 10% of big companies away - steal it - and give employees only £500 each

Is the notion of 10% of a UK owned company with more than 250 employees being given to the workers through the setting up of a inclusive ownership fund where workers would be given a dividend of up to £500 annually each and any surplus going into the public purse so bad if it helps spread wealth and prosperity more widely than currently where the CEO’s and share holders get the vast wedge of it? I know Germany has a cooperative sector four times the size of Britain’s. It is worth noting that the UK has one of the largest wealth inequalities (I think second largest) in Europe, not much less now than the US.

I am tired so I will be lazy and quote the following from a report on this proposal, “We would like to see an extension of employee ownership, to give people a greater stake and voice in their workplaces. The aim would be to give more people a share of capital and to spread economic power and control in the economy by expanding the decision rights of employees in the management of companies. The evidence shows that broadening worker ownership creates more committed workforces and more productive and fulfilling workplaces.”

birdandroses tax incentives and schemes to encourage employers and employees to offer/take up share ownership are well established. Labour’s proposed scheme, however, does not allow the employees to buy or sell ‘their’ shares in their companies - only receive up to a certain amount in dividends. This is not employee share ownership. This proposed scheme is a pile of stinking crap.