Emergency Budget

[Wouldloveanother]

What are we all thinking?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62920969

A discussion thread…

I started this thread to discuss the budget, made one comment about NI and I’ve been inundated with posts about pensions and the elderly which I’ve responded to. This thread wasn’t supposed to be about the elderly but everyone leapt on that one post I made. I’ve tried several times to steer back to the original topic but you’ve all got the bee in your bonnet now.

From the figures I can see there are over 50 million adults in the UK, just over 9 milions are over 70 so there must be a hell of a lot of apathy in under 70s if Mabel and her friends ensure a conservative govt.

12 million pensioners.
32.7 million people working.

Maybe more working people need to vote or vote differently?

Ah, so now it changes from resentment because they get pensions and own houses that they spent 25 years paying for to responsibility for Brexit and 12 years of Tory misrule. I hate to disappoint you but I voted Remain and probably hate the Tories more than you do - I’ve had decades more practice.

No the people who didn't bother to vote are more responsible. 9 million over 70s, nearly 20 million adults didn't vote. If all the over 70s voted (not likely) their votes would have been dwarfed if the 20 million voted remain.

🤔 I suspect it’s because rather a lot of them were in work on polling day

If you have worked a 10 hour shift, collected a toddler from nursery and a kid from primary school, and raced home to get them tea and bathed, how easy do you think it is to then stand on a freezing street corner for 15 minutes to queue up to vote? And who is watching the kids?

I only know 2 people who voted leave and they are in their 40s, all the 60s 70s and 80s I know voted remain. As we have a secret ballot I really don't know how anyone can say with any certainty which demographic voted leave/remain. No one asked me what I voted, no one asked my husband. Guess work.

What would make it easier to vote? Different day? Multiple days? Middle of the night? How do we get more people turning up?

We don't have to continue with the current regime (if enough people push for change!)

I think anything online would be risky security wise.

If you have worked a 10 hour shift, collected a toddler from nursery and a kid from primary school, and raced home to get them tea and bathed, how easy do you think it is to then stand on a freezing street corner for 15 minutes to queue up to vote? And who is watching the kids?

But the Brexit referendum was on a warm and sunny day🤔

I managed to vote as a single parent working full time. Never occurred to me not to.

I was working as well, collected GC and fed them before their mum could pick them up and I was caring for disabled DH. If it really is too much for you here's a tip, apply for a postal vote next time or a proxy vote, my DH loved casting my proxy vote when I was 9 months pregnant.

Think of the women who died fighting to get us the vote and we can't use it if we have to look after our own children. They'd be proud.

I worked a full day and then took baby dd with me to vote. As she’s gotten older I’ve made other arrangements like play dates to ensure I can vote.

there must be a hell of a lot of apathy in under 70s

There is.

I don’t hate elderly people whatsoever. I can’t say they don’t frustrate me as a WHOLE, because they are primarily responsible for Brexit and 12 years of Tory rule which has devastated the country. How else am I supposed to feel? But on an individual level I don’t dislike elderly people at all

This conversation has been had before. Scotland voted to remain and has a socialist pm. The majority of Wales voted Labour. Which leaves us with England. With the exception of the last election the majority of the North vote Labour. So you’re talking about the south of England putting in the Tories

And Brexit was split on educational levels.
. The higher qualified you were the less likely you were to support it. Lots of older people didn’t go to university.
Im 58 and voted remain, so did Dh, all my family and friends and colleagues.

Somehow I’ve managed to vote in every election since I was 18. Frankly if you don’t vote, you’re in no position to criticise the result. I’ve seen numerous people take their kids to the polling station and I’ve never seen a queue.

I've voted in every election since I was 19 as that's when the voting age changed. The only exception was the one where I was 9 months pregnant when the election was happening so I got a proxy vote so DH could vote for me if I wasn't able to. As it happened I could have gone and voted but he was so excited about being able to vote twice that I let him do it.

The assessment I heard was that the stamp duty changes will only benefit people buying very expensive properties, mostly in the SouthEast, very rarely 1st time buyers.

That is totally incorrect. The biggest beneficiaries will be FTB buying a property between 500 and 625000. For everyone else actually the more expensive the property the less the saving in % terms.

In other words in London. The average FTB property in most of the country is nowhere near £500k.

Well they probably need the most help then, don’t they, if they are having to buy the most expensive property 😉

I'd say first time buyers where I live are buying houses that are £200k to £250k. If they were spending over £500k they'd be buying something like a period property with five bedrooms and huge garden. Not typical first time buyer properties really.

In my area 500-625000 will get you a small 2 bed flat in a 60s block that needs a bit of work, classic FTB property!

Where I live it would buy you a four bed period house. And this is an hour out of central London.

And? It's no secret that property prices vary around the country.

I have no idea what point you’re trying to make here. I suspect you don’t either.

Well I was trying to work out the point of your post. Someone posted that FTB wouldn't benefit and I simply pointed out that FTB would benefit the most in some circumstances. Then you popped up to seemingly point out that london has more expensive property than most of the rest of the country, which I am not sure is news to anyone.