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?

So you think I should lose my home because my husband dies? Seems a bit of an odd thing to want to happen.

We do teach life skills in schools.

Mine would be to start heavy taxing massive conglomerates.

Your very system would have left the poster and her sister homeless.

@Vimto1 well there is always inequality based on who your parents are and how wealthy they are. Seems unfair that a child/young adult with wealthy parents who are alive can benefit massively from their parents wealth yet a child/young adult with dead parents would end up with nothing and reliant on the state.

Changing green belt legislation and building enough houses that prices dropped to x3 mean salary, which is what it was for hundreds of years. Plus enough social housing for those on low incomes.

@Simonjt no, it would have left them reliant on support from the state if they didn't have personal wealth.

A 100% inheritance tax could fund a robust welfare and social system that could support people properly and regardless of the wealth of their parents.

But sure, let's continue to perpetuate a class system where only the children of the wealthy get a leg up - that'll help solve inequality

No student debt for anyone working as a NHS GP for 5 years post graduate.
Ditto nurses (and bring back fully funded SRNs).
Immediate discontinuation of council houses sales. Reinstatement of 25% of all housing development to be local rent properties. 50% would be better.
Maslow said food and shelter is the basis of life (we shamefully think it is OK for many to own multiply properties, few of which are let for goodwill).
More kindness in school, less stick more carrot. More life skills, more joy.
Better laws on Internet trolling. Huge fines and DBS baring. Name and shame.

That's why I also proposed higher taxes and taxing wealth rather than income.

The aim here is surely equality?

NHS to be changed to a similar model to Australia, which is a hybrid between NHS and American system.

Maternity / Paternity / shared parental leave to mirror Sweden. The partner has to take their leave. There couple have up to 4 or 5 years (from memory) to take 18 months leave between them, mandatory I think too.

Raise the school attendance age to 6 or 7. I believe we school our children too early, and educational outcomes in countries that don’t eg. Sweden, are far better. This has to be coupled with a decent childcare (kindergarten) system from 0-6 which is funded by the government to all all women to return to work after childbirth.

Raise the tax rate for higher earners (40% and 45%) - I’m not an economist, but by 5p I think would raise billions (and I’m a higher earner)

Control the media more. No idea how, but our news scares, influences and controls us more than any of us realise (M & H / Royal family saga is just one teeny example)

Re form the political structure and old traditions or lobbying, and passing laws. It seems to be outdated, lengthy and ridiculously tedious to get anything pushed through quickly. And don’t get me started on it all being in London when that is the most expensive city to pull together over 200 MP’s at any one time; or that technology is STILL not being used within the public sector to meet / vote etc, which would save money on MP expenses (travel, accommodation) and second homes.

Yes to the 100% inheritance tax. It is obscene that some people whose parents die are made for life while others are left with a bill. We are always being told we live in neoliberal capitalism - let's have a bit of actual meritocracy and the individual as the unit of society.

There's a good reason that monorails never really made it far past the Disneyland parks. There's also a good reason that the Chinese are currently building conventional high speed rail rather than more maglevs.

We too are building conventional high speed rail at this very moment. A line which will operate at higher speeds than the Japanese Shinkansen (thanks to us having benefitted from the experience gained by the Japanese and the French) and which will reduce journey times between London and Glasgow to 3h40m. Maybe eventually they'll extend the scheme north, beyond Wigan for greater benefits.

By the way, Glasgow to London currently takes 4h40m, no where near "nearly 7 hours".

Of course they would have been left homeless, unless you’re suggesting that an adult and a child would be given enough money to put down a deposit and have enough benefits coming in each month to be approved for a mortgage on the property.

Do you really think having a home repossed doesn’t lead to being homeless?

Most home owners are not wealthy.

@Vimto1 have you bought any Christmas presents for your kids? If so, can you please give at least half to mine? I don't see why just your kids should get them.

Equality does not mean further traumatising and displacing bereaved people, possibly away from their local support systems and families. Forcing widowed people to sell family houses and relocate to where they can afford, possibly many miles away, is regressive and ridiculous.

While taxes should be higher possibly, taking 100% of what someone has worked for would mean lots might not bother.

People thinking teachers would be capable of teaching "life skills".

They went to school, uni then back to school.

Bullet train travels at 200mph. London-Glasgow is just over 400 miles.

The British invented the train so we should have the fastest and best trains in the world.

Yes I've long thought this. If you can prove you've paid a rent of up to (for example) £1,000 a month for 12 months then you should be approved for a mortgage with payments of day £900 a month.

I didn’t. Which life skills specifically?

Universal Basic Income

Makes so much sense

Very obvious on here who are the ones who have received / are expecting inheritances, and see them as an entitlement, and the ones who know that all they will ever have is what they can make for themselves.

I was in my early twenties and both my parents were dead. I can assure you it's absolutely terrifying not having the safety net of parents. I don't necessarily mean financially but as in terms of somewhere to go. If I lost everything tomorrow or my life went completely tits up for whatever reason I have nowhere to go. That's fucking unfair...not the money I got.

Do you really think that homelessness is inevitable if you don't get your parents' wealth when they pass?

How do the millions of people whose parents didn't own houses not end up homeless?

Never received an inheritance, never will receive one, never had an ability to rely on financial support from family. That doesn’t mean I want bereaved children to be made homeless.

Comedycook do you honestly not get that this also happens to people who don't receive inheritances?! They have NO safety net of any kind!

Less division and everyone wanting to improve the country and be willing to participate in the hard conversations and decisions needed e.g. euthanasia, nhs, taxes, pensions and so on.

And mostly respect for our environment and where we live, not littering and dumping stuff illegally.