To ask if you have an idea you believe would significantly improve life in the UK?

[ConfusedmumUC]

I’ll go first.

I can’t help but think making someone’s rent payments eligible to prove you can pay a mortgage would go a long way to housing security for so many people. And limiting the amount of properties owned by one landlord / amount a landlord can charge in rent, would also go a long way. I can’t help but think profiteering massively off of a basic need and right such as housing is really not ok.

Im sure there’s a reason why my idea wouldn’t work, feel free to put me right 😂

What’s your idea?

Make Britain family centric - there are so many ways this could be done, I can't name them all. It would solve a multitude of ills.

Make CSA work. Garner wages of NRP, invest money in stamping out CM dodging. This would save DWP billions in the long term.

Third and subsequent children birthed on private health care, not NHS.

Introduce sport and fitness at grass roots in primary, not just elite. Would save the NHS millions, if not billions treating poor physical and mental health.

Completely overhaul the education system. There are a multitude of valid reasons teachers are leaving the profession.

Better child maintenance system. Criminal offence for the absent parent that doesn't pay towards their child's upkeep

About this, if you listen to some:

Legalise drugs or at least cannabis tax it and make a fortune encouraging new business investment and creating jobs use some of the money to fund large pay increase for nurses so they are highly paid. The rest can go in improving social care for mental health, children's services elderly etc Freeze mps salaries they should do it for the good of the Country not their own egos, definitely add proper life skills lessons in school should be essential to include money management, paying tax if self employed, paying bills and saving, understanding mortgages, law, basic cooking ironing and keeping a home, childcare, basic car mechanics, changing plugs lightbulbs etc. Run prisons like being in army so daily cell inspections everything in its place, order and neat then easier to find contraband and everyone knows their routine simples.

My brilliant ideas would also cut crime and free up police to attend more important matters and also empty our prisons a bit to make room for all the paedophiles and wife beaters I would lock up forever

What really doesn't help is that London gets a disproportionate amount of transport spending. Invest in infrastructure in the north and businesses will move - HSBC already has moved to Birmingham (alright, not true north).
www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19730450.transport-spending-per-head-london-double-north/

Sadly the government (after spending a fortune on building Crossrail in London) has cancelled the improvements planned for the North East, and are threatening the projects in the North West.

If there was 100% inheritance tax, people would be spending like mad before they died.

Of course they would - I've never heard of such a ridiculous idea. Those who aren't anticipating an inheritance seem rather keen to make sure no-one else gets one either. If they are so intent on helping the less fortunate maybe they could offer to pay 100% tax on their salary after a certain number of years?

You aware of the issues with Northern Ireland at the moment? Multiply that 100 fold if you're dividing each county by how they voted. It'd be like Bosnia, where the internal border runs along where the frontline was when the civil war ended, no logic to it and lots of exclaves.

It is a stupid comment. You realise that the other 90% of land in the UK isn't some barren wasteland? Most of it is agricultural land which we depend upon for food (or would you prefer that we just deforest more of Brazil and import food from there?).

Would you like to know just how much land in England isn't used by humans for one purpose or another? 0.2%

So if I accidentally go 35 in a 30 zone (making me a criminal) I should be imprisoned for the rest of my life?

2 up 2 downs do not work for most families. there's a reason they stopped building them!

I can’t help but think making someone’s rent payments eligible to prove you can pay a mortgage would go a long way to housing security for so many people

@ConfusedmumUC I’m not in the UK but I’ve been recently thinking about this a lot. My rent has increased so much in the last couple of years that I am paying weekly rent that is significantly higher than most people I know who have a mortgage are paying on a weekly basis.

But I think that it really isn’t just about whether you can make the mortgage repayments. I think it’s about maintaining class and status.

I think it’s time to rethink how much we value status and being more important than the next person. Maybe we need to shift more towards egalitarianism.

Climate change is affecting the whole world and one of the things that’s holding us back from making a real difference is the very rich want to stay the very rich. Their excessive wealth brings them more opportunities and helps them to keep believing that they are more important and above most other people.

The world would be a better place if we abandoned status and classism.

How would UBI work, surely there's no incentive for me to work a high stress, high responsibility job if I could go and flip burgers for the same money but no stress and no responsibility?

So if my husband dies, me and my two children would be made homeless and reliant on the state, there's no way I could afford to pay half of the value of my house in tax, let alone his other assets. You're mad.

Vote out the Tories

And put Boris, Rees Mogg and Farage in adjacent bins.

Left the thread for a few hours and now all the UK’s children are homeless orphans, tax is at 100%, crack is legalised and Rees Mogg is upside down in a bin in the corner. Carnage!

I love it, please continue…

Universal Basic Income

Renationalise energy providers, energy should not be based on speculation
Adopt an insurance and risk-based health system with appropriate premiums
Pass legislation to ensure that multi-nationals pay the appropriate tax on their in-country profits
Revive skilled trades such as butchery, carpentry etc.
Impose high import taxes on non-UK, non-seasonal produce to encourage a return to local, seasonal eating
Tax supermarkets that mainly sell packaged, highly-processed foodstuffs
Automate processes around passport renewal and DVLA so that human intervention is only required for exceptions
Reform higher education to return it to being free for all, but with fewer places, since throwing the doors wide ooen does not appear to have had the desired effect
Impose compulsory enery efficiency measures on all new builds and investigate the options for subsidising enery-savings' measures for existing structures
Create allotments in all communities
Facilitate provision of work-based childcare that is either free or at low cost, for example a % of money earned

Childcare costs should be free or at a minimum be fully tax deductible.

scrap stamp duty and increase council tax to compensate. Stamp duty massively reduces our ability to always live in a house that meets our housing needs by disincentivising downsizing etc.

build more.

ensure full inheritance tax on house price gains - this is untaxed income.

increase the basic rate of tax. This is how Scandinavian countries can afford progressive policies. They are paid for by everyone.

merge NI into income tax and set divided rates at the same rate too. Would stop a lot of anti avoidance/ IR35 nonsense.

expand social care / reintroduce convAlescent homes to ensure hospitals are used efficiently.

Elect meeeeee!

There's still the incentive, you'd still be able to earn a lot more. The highest hourly age can still be set at multiple times the lowest hourly wage, and still reduce inequality. However, currently there are certain sectors and workers being paid far, far, far in excess of their worth to society.

Also, I think an awful lot of people fail to accept that some of the poorest paid jobs in the the UK are actually some of the ones with the worse working conditions. They may be low-skilled, but not necessary low-stress, low responsibility or un-essential. Some jobs there are very few rungs up from entry level, however we really rely on the experienced workers in those jobs. It's fine encouraging people to better themselves and rewarding the best. However, we still need people to fill all the types and levels of jobs we have. We need people to understand that some people will work just as hard as others all their lives, but not see the monetary success of others. That doesn't mean their jobs are not some of the most valuable to society.

Some of the lower paid professional jobs are also haemorrhaging workers and unable to recruit enough replacements due to the way workers are treated and the poor salary as compensation.

There is no reason that any full-time worker should be hungry, cold or in unsecure housing. We are one of the biggest and wealthiest economies in the world. We need our workforce. We'd be far happier and productive if we met the basic living needs of all our workers and their families, currently that's not happening. A few have more than they'll ever need and an increasing number do not have enough for the basics.

License to have children .

Scandinavia is not the panacea people think it is. My ex husband is Danish and during covid I lived in denmark. It’s a xenophobic country. Their immigration policies are horrific. They were proud of anti immigration policies including the removal of Syrian refugees. The Danes are fully in favour of processing refugees in Rwanda and it was floated there first before Priti Patel ever mentioned anything in the UK. Most importantly understand their education system is terrible. Parents send their children to ‘free schools’ where you pay a top up. In essence it’s a private school. The Scandinavian countries really have the best propaganda and PR.

As for schools have a max of 15 to a class, if you look at the birth rates, since changes to benefits came in, people are having 2 children now and the decline in numbers is going to create the opportunity to do something radical like have 15 children to a class. Rather than shut schools down, I’d like to see classrooms stay open and have less children in each class. Yes it’s expensive upfront but I think these children will receive a better education and it will enable more people to train in the positions needed for our society to function.

Taxes do need to change and I think it comes from a change in money made available to those over 65. Why do they automatically get Tv license paid for, free prescriptions and money for their heating when so many of that generation have final salary pensions. So many are retired earning significant sums. They really don’t need the help. Obviously there are plenty of elderly who don’t have such funds and they of course should be helped. I can’t understand how a pension paying out £50k a year, enables any other assistance being paid until it’s shown the full amount is spent on care in the home.

Or we could aim even higher and spend as much as Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany or Switzerland.

In the Netherlands you pay over a hundred Euros a month for obligatory health insurance even if you hardly ever go the the GP. You also have the first 285(?) to pay yourself a year. I have family living there. The health care is excellent.