To feel increasingly alienated by Tory voters?

[BarmyBrunhilde]

I am in despair as to where our country is at. With the cost of living crisis looming (and already beginning), this winter is going to be brutal and likely life ending for so many in the UK, and the current aspiring leadership of the Tory party seem to be more interested in litigating culture wars and appeasing NIMBY pensioners in the Home countries than actually addressing any of the serious problems in the UK.

I've never been a Tory voter, but I've always been able to get along with people who have different views (provided they aren't racist/homophobic etc). But how anyone could see all the misery and deprivation on the horizon, look at the prospective leaders and frontbenchers with their complete lack of sultions, and continue with supporting them is genuinely beyond me. I find myself slowly being consumed by bitterness and rage against people for their views, and it frightens me. Am I alone in this?

Labour is unfortunately not viable as it is now.
It's better than it was now they've not got Corbyn at the helm, but they need a plan other than just disagreeing with absolutely anything the Tories come up with.
I refused to vote for Labour with Corbyn, now Starmer has to come up with something worthwhile or I'll just vote tory again.
They just seem ill equipped.

Well, no they haven’t after staying they were taxed 18k originally. Which is why I feel
like it was to make a point rather than based in reality.

Oh. And until Labour work out what a woman is they can fuck right off.

I'll let you know on August 30th then! I'll barely get into 6 figures. It's £99280 basic salary and I do a tiny bit of extra consulting work on top, which will come to about £1500, so I'm not going to be hit by much of a loss of the personal allowances.

So a complete over exaggeration then. Therefore your point is moot. You will not be paying 60% tax.

I've already explained that. I was paying that in a previous role and took up a new one this month, along with loads of other people, who work in a place where contracts standardly begin in August.
I'm a bit baffled about why it's got under your skin so much, but there we go. You feel what you want to feel.

What is it you want the government to do, and more to the point, who should fund it?

How is it a complete over-exaggeration? 99280 + 1500 comes to 100780, which is a six figure salary. I never said it was a huge six-figure salary.

I hate the tories, I do.
But so people not realise that so many of the issues we are facing, are global.
EU has overall worse inflation than us for example and many of them are absolutely ducked re their heating this winter too.

I don’t know why you think this would have been better had Labour been in power - because it wouldn’t.

*do people

Exactly this. Try to be more tolerant of people with different opinions than you have.

Because we were talking about the tax burden in this country which is a whopping 60% for those tipping into 6 figures. Which is why many skilled people leave as salaries in tech and engineering specifically are not competitive. You popped into try and dismiss that by saying you earned 6 figures and we’re happy with your tax burden. You misled people to try and make a point. You pay no where near that level of tax.

I'm interested in why you think this?
It's absolutely true that loads of people are facing huge hikes in Europe for heating too, but those hikes are no more than 70% whereas we are facing over 200% and rising. That's a political choice. The Tories don't want to tax the energy producers, whereas it was Labour's policy to do so.
Our inflation and growth outlook is also worse than other EU countries, though much of that is due to Brexit and Starmer is not very vocal in opposing that. I don't think, however, that he would have cut ties quite so brutally and therefore I don't think the impact would have been as hard.

How incredibly patronising and generally ill-informed of you.

I said I earned six figures, which I do. I also said, and stand by it, that I would pay more tax happily if I saw that it was being fairly and wisely invested. People aren't paying 60% on the whole of their salary - just on the bit that tips them over, and it still leaves plenty. The point I was making was that, had it been a Labour govnmt, taxing at 45% over £80000, that would still have been only about £1000 more, so not a huge ask.

You have actually said two completely different things on this thread. The latter was to try and prove a point that 60% income tax is acceptable and it isn’t causing a talent retention crisis in this country. You massively over exaggerated as you don’t pay 60% tax as you implied. That can be seen in the posts so that’s all I have to say. Your replies re tax are moot at you don’t pay it al those levels.

It’s the wholesalers that are making insane money here, not the suppliers.

E.ON (I think, might have been N power) posted £700million loss compared to last year. I realise that they still make insane money, but this is a massive supply and demand issue. Are people aware of what German are having to do right now to protect themselves against this energy crisis this winter? Install log burning systems where they can, as well as the government trying to look at more economical options like (Nuclear. - perfectly safe option btw) and wind power.

Please show me the figures where it says our inflation outlook is worse? I read the opposite (will find the link) but am genuinely interested in reading other sources and am prepared to be corrected here. Inflation is worse in many other EU countries.

@Midnightblack im afraid your assertion re 70% simply isn’t true. Now, I’m not going to assume you can read Dutch - but scroll down to the bottom table and you should be able to understand 2021 vs 2022.

www.energievergelijk.nl/nieuws/nederlandse-huishoudens-betalen-nu-hoogste-gasprijs-in-europa

(quick and dirty headline translation - Dutch households now paying the highest gas price in Europe)

And I agree we are in for troubled times, but it’s incredibly simplistic to suggest that we wouldn’t be here if we had a Labour Government.

It’s actually annoying to read this, and playing party politics with a global problem is minimising the issue.

Labour wanted to lockdown faster and for longer apparently and do the exact opposite of the the Tories, not to mention his non-view on Brexit. Please tell me how this would have put us in a better state than we are now.

I've said far more than two things on this thread. We will just have to disagree about whether 60% is unacceptable. You were the one who said that people earning six figure salaries were leaving and were unable to provide any evidence of this, despite several posters asking you to do so. I don't think that I did imply that I paid 60% tax at all - my point was rather that it is possible to earn six figures and NOT pay 60% tax. I am a case in point. I'm glad that's all that is you have to say though and wish you well as you emigrate.

@Midnightblack I used to think Lammy was great, but he made a bit of an arse of himself over twaw nonsense, calling women “dinosaurs” then (iirc) tried to redeem himself by making a big play about women’s rights, then got extremely arsey with the BBC when he was quizzed about “issues that constituents don’t care about”…. basically just playing to the choir, not making any attempt to reconcile his apparently conflicting positions.

Thornberry made an absolute arse of herself by tweeting a picture of a white van and St George cross flags as a sneering “omg look at this thick peasant” joke. Pretty punchy for someone elected to the so-called party of the working classes… then she resigned over it.

Both of the above would also put both in my “thick as mince” category, but my post wasn’t really about individuals, just the depressing lack of morality, brains, consistency and decency across the house.

I don't think that the Dutch prices have risen by more than 70% though, have they? My point was that our prices have gone up by more than 200 % [to date] whereas in the rest of Europe prices have not risen by as much, though I grant you that they may have been higher to start with.

Ok, maybe the table was difficult to understand:

August 21 - €1497
august 22 - €5178

Shall I do the maths for you too?

It’s not, it’s because you barely, literally just scrape in. Don’t worry though anyone over 60% then pays 45% but you wouldn’t know if you’re on 75k or 99k whichever the truth is.

I couldn’t get past the drama lama first line…. Life ending?? Its going to be tough in the short term, but medium to long term looks fine. Fuel prices will start to come down shortly. You can make your point without being so overly dramatic. We don’t live in Siberia!