Are the conservatives really this popular?

[LabourHere]

Listening to statistician on BBC who reckons the conservatives are head in all polls and will win a majority on election day.

I know only two people voting conservative (mil and dm). Who are all the other conservative voters??

Are the conservatives really going to win the election so easily?

If so...I'm very very sad

Bravo ladysuchlike.

My mobile hairdresser is pretty amazing, she works full time at a salon and uses her day off to do her mobile work. She pockets all the cash and squirrels it away for the salon she plans on opening, she's building her network and her future empire.

Corbyn has no interest in people like this.

I have no interest in someone defrauding HMRC either. I certainly wouldn’t applaud it.

Another edit:

"It also astonishes me that people STILL DO NOT KNOW that the people who actually pay for welfare, are the low paid. Low income workers are disproportionally taxed - especially under high tax Labour governments.

Labour seem to have lost a lot the working class voters. The people I would expect to vote labour don't anymore. I think this view that they are patronising is correct. The people I see quite vitriolic about labour on social media are academic/artsy types and certainly not struggling - almost seems they can afford a labour government. It's a shame Corbyn has destroyed the party, I am not sure how they will move forward.

Most people don't want extremes, which is what labour is offering. Needs to be a balance. BJ may not be appealing either but he seems a safer bet to most people.

@ScreamingLadySutch, well said. Have a bonfire of the tax code and the benefits programme, replacing it with a universal basic income, decriminalise (and tax) drugs, and improve prison education/training so you can't be freed until you are at least literate and numerate, with a trade skill.

Unless your family has one or more £80k+ incomes, there won’t be any difference.

What a ridiculous lie! Does anyone in their right mind believe Labour can pay for their trillion pound giveaways just by taxing those over 80k? No, because it’s fucking impossible. Labour’s greedy paw is going to be dipping into a looooooot of pockets to find a trillion pounds...

Low income workers are disproportionally taxed - especially under high tax Labour governments

Can you substantiate that or are we supposed to just take your word for it?

It's obvious that it is the low income workers who will be hit hardest by higher taxes, because most are PAYE and can't avoid a lot of tax by employing clever accountants - like the super rich. These are the people who fund the bulk of the nations taxes.

Isn't it 43% of working people don't earn enough to pay any income tax?

Labour seem to have lost a lot the working class voters.

Yes. The ‘working class’ have changed in the last 40 years. Most don’t work for the public sector. Most aren’t members of trade unions (upwards of 2/3 of trade union members work in ‘professional’ roles). Most don’t have protected ‘final salary’ pensions.

Policies about commuter rail fares, tuition fees, public sector pay rises, nationalisation and union representation appeal to young, well-educated, Europhile, city-dwelling professionals.

EntropyRising
Whilst it admirable that she has such a fantastic work ethic, if it is actually cash she is squirreling away, she's evading tax.

DS got three quotes for some building work in London a few months ago. Each of the builders asked for cash for the job - two even in writing.

Just wrong - but everyone seems to ignore it.

Very true, and Johnson has LOTS of interest in tax evaders, albeit he is more interested in increasing the wealth of people who already have far more money than they can squirrel away on the back of a day a week hairdressing.

I don't feel critical of people like Entrophy's hairdresser, although yes she is evading tax which is unlawful (not to mention pretty daft to be telling people about).

She can't be earning much in the scheme of things, and if she's planning to vote Convervative needs to think about how she'll manage when she has to pay for healthcare etc.

And, of course, she is one of the many not very well paid people who enables the 'higher earners' to do just that.

I don't for a single minute believe the polls
The relentless lies and articles about anti semitism re: Labour is a clear frantic effort to try and deny Corbyn what the Tories see as a possible near victory for Labour
It is going to be the biggest shock of all election results.

I've no idea what her tax arrangements are, she's not my employee.

And she's not 'not very well paid', horse, why would you assume this?

She can't be earning much in the scheme of things, and if she's planning to vote Convervative needs to think about how she'll manage when she has to pay for healthcare etc.

Why do you spout such nonsense?

Tax evasion in the black economy is huge - the likes of tradesmen & hairdressers working for cash which they don't declare, plus people selling duty free booze and fags, plus employees working cash in hand, etc. Official HMRC estimates of the tax-gap show it's one of the biggest components of the tax loss.

It is going to be the biggest shock of all election results.

I'll have some of what you're drinking. Corbyn hasn't a snowballs chance in hell of getting anywhere near victory.

The best he can hope for is a coalition which will hopefully temper his socialist ambitions.

Of course ordinary people on ordinary incomes will have to pay for Corbyn's insane spending plans.

He thinks the rich will pay for everything. People like Lord Sugar who in 2017 allegedly paid 57 million to the revenue. But you can only tax people if you get them onside. Until 2015, Sugar was a member of the Labour Party and one of its largest donors. But he despises Corbyn. He will move his businesses offshore where corporation tax is lower (Ireland for example).

Then what will Corbyn do? Historically communist regimes only survive if they can stop people and money leaving. That will never happen in the the UK (hopefully!!) So when the "top 5%" leave, Corbyn will have to tax the middle classes through PAYE and then the poor and even the very poor - through VAT on everything - just to satisfy a mania for nationalisation. This is exactly what the leaders that he supported in Venezuela have done.

That's why the Conservatives are suddenly so popular.

Entrophy because sole trader hairdressers don't earn a fortune.

If she did, she would have 'built her empire' by now, no?

So what are your views on tax evasion? It was you who described your hairdresser as 'pocketing all her cash and squirreling it away for the salon she plans to build'.

This implies that you're perfectly happy with tax evasion (as long as it benefits you), but do feel free to correct me.

The views I spout aren't such 'nonsense' that you can counter them with sensible arguments, I've noticed several times on this thread.

So what are your views on tax evasion? It was you who described your hairdresser as 'pocketing all her cash and squirreling it away for the salon she plans to build'.

I'd rather that employees and others could save money like that with a properly enacted tax exemption, with the condition that the money really was spent on business expansion, i.e. a "deferment" of tax/nic which is cancelled after, say, 5 years if the money isn't spent on buying/starting a business. A kind of ISA for starting a business, like there is a ISA for buying the first home or the lifetime ISA etc. It would mean the hairdresser in question wouldn't have to break the law in order to start a business - a business which in the fullness of time would probably produce quite a good tax/nic revenue for the Treasury. As it stands, with her having to do it "under the radar", it sets the scene/precedent and she may well end up frightened of setting up her new business legitimately and could end up a tax evader when she is running her business (to avoid awkward questions about where the money came from!).

No proof that low paid workers are disproportionately taxed under a Labour government yet? Astonishing.

The Tories have done loads to stop tax evasion and also to stop some lawful avoidance, including the ATED - annual tax on enveloped dwellings and 15% stamp duty on such properties, the requirement at companies hosue to name the beneficial owner of properties, the loan charge to catch those some for 20 years who have pretended to be self employed when they are employed and much else.

At present never in British history have higher income earners paid such a high proportion of income tax (I agree those on low incomes with enough spare to pay for more than food and rent which has no VAT do pay VAT). There are very few billionaires which is why Hammond had to propose more national insurance on white van man as there are lots of those men but back tracked after public out cry.

The hair dresser is a red h erring. Labour and the Tories require her to pay income tax on her income once added to her PAYE income from her other job. She can certainly squirrel away 80% or 60% ( depending on her tax rate) of it of course once she has paid her tax on her net profits.

Whilst Labour is attractive to younger voters, some older voters who lived through the IRA era and have TV footage from then etched into their brains will find themselves unable to vote for Corbyn. Many don't fall for the line that he was working for peace and are deeply distrustful of him. His past is an issue that a different Labour leader just won't have. I'd hedge a bet that a competent more centrist Labour leader without a troublesome (to some) past would be ahead in the polls right now.