For all those who support the strikes

[chopc]

Where do you think the money will come from for all the pay rises? Are you personally willing to pay more tax?
We all saw during the pandemic it is the poorly paid essential workers that kept the country going and they totally deserve more money than the claps they got. However will YOU be prepared to contribute to the pot ?

If not where do you think the govn will find more money from?

With all the public workers getting good pensions, the country is broke. I know many people who can't get a pension and working beyond the trad 65 age. We are all in this together. I worked through the lock down and served many public workers on full pay at home. I didn't get the chance. Let's work together and get the country back on its feet

OK, I'll bite.

I currently have 2 children under 3 in full time childcare. I pay £3,000 per month in nursery fees. I believe that childcare should be free or heavily subsidised. I would happily pay that £3,000 in additional taxation to subsidise public services such as childcare, healthcare, social care and all the other benefits which come from being the citizen of a country with a functional welfare state.

Clearly, I can afford to pay the £3,000 per month that I am currently paying for childcare. I cannot afford to pay a high rate of taxation on top of the £3,000 per month but in a properly funded system I wouldn't have to. The services that I am now forced to pay for out of my post-tax income - such as childcare, dental care, extortionate train fares - would be financed through receipts from general taxation.

This is what is so disingengenuous about you 'whatabouters'; you insist on double counting! Of course very few people can currently afford to pay higher taxes. We're currently paying through the nose for privately procured, expensive services. If we all paid in taxation what we pay for those services we'd see significant cuts in current levels of household expenditure.

BBC did a good fact checker of the costs involved in giving the nurses a 10% pay rise.

Tories have quoted £1,000 per house hold where it is actually £840 per household. So £70 a month.

Or if the nurses get the 19% pay rise they are asking roughly double at approx £130 a month.

I'm happy to pay it but I can imagine lots won't be. Look at the fiasco over the national insurance rise which has since been reversed.

There is so much waste through so many layers in the NHS that they probably could give the nurses a payrise without raising taxes if they could curb the skimming off at so many levels by 'private' contractors.
This has been going on for many many years

It needs systemic change and it doesn't look at like any political party has the guts to do anything about it.

Do you think it would benefit the country to erode public sector pensions now, so we have more pensioners who need support in the future? Given that national pension costs and health/social care for the elderly are taking by far the greatest share of public spending

So much griping about public sector workers pensions. It’s not actually as amazing as all that and it wouldn’t solve the country’s problems, whatever the right-wing dailies tell you.

There is a union for everyone. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from joining one.

I'm happy to pay it but I can imagine lots won't be. Look at the fiasco over the national insurance rise which has since been reversed.
That was caused by the ideology of conservative MPs, not unrest in the general population

I would pay more tax.

Theres a population of 68 million in this country. It every person paid an additional £5 over the course of a year, (41p a month each) it would generate an additional £340 MILLION.

Of course, that 68 mill figure does include children. But even if you said 50 million people paying an additional £5 throughout the year, that provides an added income of £250 million.

that £250m could be a huge difference between keeping people out of food banks, away from universal credit, away from fuel poverty - it could mean more spending in shops, boosting local economies, keeping people in jobs because they are incentivised to stay....

Of course, I have no belief that this government could manage anything so straightforward.

How many more years are workers expected to accept ever worsening pay and conditions?

It's not just public sector either, private strikes such as the railways and bus companies.

First it was austerity, with the promise of a golden tomorrow if we all took the hit.

Then COVID, then Ukraine, when does this golden tomorrow ever come?

The Conservatives have gaslighted us into a position where even some of the people being treated like shit are grateful for it.

I was never a fan of the Thursday night claps, but I find these happy clappers are often the same ones cheerleading yet another attack on workers pay and conditions.

You can't feed your family on Thursday night claps by.

Saw that on a nurses placard and it resonated with me.

YES
My household income is usually over £300k and I could very very easily afford to pay alot more tax. Anyone on my income who isn't willing to do so so that nurses can earn a living wage is a ignorant and selfish idiot.

I would pay the £70 per month for the 10% rise but there’s no way I’d be willing to pay more than that for 19%. That is far more than the majority of workers will be getting (10% is more too). This is what annoys me about the strike, i support them needing more money but 19% is a ridiculous amount to ask for in current times. Their pay isn’t that terrible when taking pension and other benefits into account.

How is it a change of subject to say the goc wastes money?

It's very much relevant. I wouldn't pay more tax, because I know it would be wasted.

Pretty sure the agency staffing model that makes private companies lots of money costs more per year than what nurses are asking for. So on top of giving them a payrise we could also hire more nurses.

But instead we should pay more tax? That doesn't even make sense.

We've already been paying more, ex. For railway tickets each year. No one benefits but big bosses.

If the greedy and incompetent people at the top started to do their jobs and got a bit less greedy there wouldn't be a need for us to pay more.

Simple solution: Add an extra 41% tax rate between Higher and Additional, and make the threshold ~£70k/year. That would more than cover a £10k flat pay rise for all nurses in the NHS, which would also attract more nurses (I'm well into this salary bracket, and would be more than happy to pay it).

More complex solution: Fix the wastage in the NHS, ditch Blair's insane PFI contracts, and pay it out of the savings.

The simple solution could be done tomorrow. The more complex one would take a decade or more.

This!

Shh, I don’t think the Brexiters like to be reminded of that. Or to be told how Brexit is damaging the economy and the sunlit uplands will never be reached.

As the saying goes "Well, I wouldn't start from here." I wouldn't have pissed away money on Covid contracts and Brexit, I wouldn't have decimated schools and hospitals and all public services for the last 12 years, I wouldn't have given derisory pay rises/frozen pay when inflation was low for the last 12 years, I wouldn't have pursued an austerity ideology and suppressed growth in the economy, I wouldn't have privatised the energy industry, I wouldn't have left us reliant on importing gas, I wouldn't have exposed the general public and business to soaring energy costs. But we are where we are. It's not a case of can we pay for these pay rises now, it's a case of get on with paying for these pay rises now and meeting these terms and conditions or we will never have a decent train service, we won't have any nurses or porters as operating a forklift in an Amazon warehouse pays more and we won't have anyone delivering the post. Trouble is the Tory answer is "Go and get a better paid job." Trouble is that is exactly what people have been doing and will continue to do.

I'm in the 3rd sector, too. When I started 15 years ago, I was getting approx 2.5x the NMW at the time. The salary for that same role is now less than 1.5x NMW, and I'm thankful I've had a couple of promotions. I work in welfare rights, and we regularly have to give benefit and debt advice to staff, because they're really struggling.

Every extra £1 a nurse gets only costs the public purse 68p, because 32% will go in tax and NI. And if that nurse is on UC (highly likely if they have children and pay rent) the govt will save 55% of the remaining 68p in UC reduction.

I'm happy to pay more tax to get adequate public services, but I think corporation tax and a windfall tax on energy companies should come first.

Government might want to get the billions they lost in fraudulent Covid claims! Instead they've written it off! Or they could have funded the NHS better in the first place... they have the money to make sure everyone's pensions rose with inflation... do the same to the nurses pay!

Consideringg how much has been spaffed up the wall bailing out bankers, in massive state events, in mps pay rises and things like track and trace, which was 3× more thsn nurses pay rises would cost alone, then its less about whether I would pay more tax out of my carers wages, and whether the uber rich should actually pay towards the country they benefit from

On the news yesterday the government said they couldn't give public sector pay workers a pay rise as it would cost each taxpayer £1000 extra a year. I personally would be willing to pay that in return for functioning public services but I guess a pay rise is only part of the problem and so more money would be needed.

Since Boris was prime minister billions upon billions hav been misspent or lost. This includes;

£40 billion at least lost in tax revenue from how the government enacted brexit.

£37 billion on test and trace.

£9 billion on PPE kit that couldn't be used.

£4.3 billion written off to covid fraud

Up to £20 billion lost failure to repay covid loans

£11 billion in interest overpayment when Rishi was chancellor

£4 billion in contracts to companies with ties to the tory party

£12 billion spent on projects described by analysts as either "wasteful" or "in support of government excess"

£4 billion overspend on the £15 billion budget for Elizabeth line

And that's just a few, I've not even mentioned (until now) the £30 billion hole trussenomics blew through our economy.

We don't have a lack of money problem, and we dont need the average jane to contribute any more through tax, we have an unbelievable inept government problem.

Frankly, the level of ineptitude displayed by the tories borders on the criminal and corrupt. At this stage I'm 99.9% sure any random person over the age of 3 could do a better job of running the economy than the tories.

A lot of charities deliver services that are funded by govt spending anyway. The charity I work for is contracted by adult social care, NHS or LA housing services, depending on the project.

I think nearly all of my team are NHS funded, one is funded from rent income derived from local authorities.

Yes, I'd pay more for better funded services. But I also think there are plenty of people making lots of money for their friends eg PPE contracts, tax avoidance and the money can be "found" if there is the right pressure.

Distribution of goods in this country is so uneven, that it's slippery slope right now towards third world's country. Of course there is money to fund rises without affecting taxpayers. First of all, they should grab corporations by their throats, instead of favouring them.

However Tallulah the Diversity and Inclusion Manager is a waste of £40k+