AIBU to think Rishi Sunak is actively trying to piss off the entire country?

[Locutus2000]

Or does he genuinely not get it?

Every time he speaks he seems further detached from reality. His interview today was insanely out of touch.

Got a mortgage? Stuffed

Work in the public sector? Stuffed.

Rent your home? Stuffed

Live in a small town? Stuffed

Supported Brexit? Disaster

Not to mention the Johnson honours scandal and Liz Truss.

AIBU to think the only people happy are his fellow super rich?

is there truly some hope that Labour will come through and make big changes?
@MostlyHuman

The current situation here is that the government has done nothing to benefit the ordinary person in the past 13 years and so yes, I do really hope that Labour will be better. It would be incredibly difficult to do worse.

I think the problem is theres not much that can be done to makes anyones lives better (even if he were so inclined) that wouldn’t stoke inflation. Inflation is the key problem, energy being the main driver .

The price of energy was going up before the war due to bottlenecks in supply and downgrading of investments, France’s nuclear reactors had to go offline etc. inflation is still too high and interest rates are the big trigger the bank of england can pull.

It’s important to remember the bank of england is independent. The government is not instructing them to raise rates and they don’t have many other options. Pushing more money into circulation will just make it worse. The bank of england should have started raising rates years ago to be frank. It’s shit but there really isn’t much that can be done that doesn’t make everything worse and more protracted.

7 Chancellors of the Exchequer in 7 years.
Hundreds of Millions of pounds wasted on failed systems and PPE during pandemic.
Failure to meet housing targets.
Failure to meet Grenfell style cladding targets.
Matt Hancock snogging his married mistress in his office.
Boris Johnson's £100,000 plus flat makeover paid for by a donor.
Neil Parrish MP watching porn in the House of Commons.
Chris Pincher groping men.
Lockdown parties.
Owen Patterson lobbying for pay.
Dominic Cummings testing his eyes.

No party could be worse.

"That’s why we’re committed to the biggest expansion of NHS training in its history – more nurses, doctors, midwives and health visitors. All fully-funded by removing the non-dom tax status." Keir Starmer May 2023

Exactly.

Of income taxpayers the top 1% of income earners currently pay 30% of all income tax, 50% pay no income tax and the remaining 49% pay 70% of all income tax.

It is a common comment on MN to increase income tax on the rich - the rich being defined as anyone earning 30% more than them.

Far more effective to increase taxes on wealth rather than income:

@BunnyBettChetwynnd

"That’s why we’re committed to the biggest expansion of NHS training in its history – more nurses, doctors, midwives and health visitors. All fully-funded by removing the non-dom tax status." Keir Starmer May 2023

++++

Sadly this is another example of a politician lying. Although I fully agree with removing the non dom tax status, there is no way it will raise enough money to pay for "the biggest expansion of the NHS in history".

Sadly this is completely accurate, however voters don't like politicians telling them the truth. They would prefer voting for a politician that lies to them offering pain free solutions.

He didn't say the biggest expansion of the NHS in history.

Read it again.

Sadly this is completely accurate, however voters don't like politicians telling them the truth. They would prefer voting for a politician that lies to them offering pain free solutions.

yep, he can't really turn around and say the economy is fucked.

@1dayatatime

£3.2 billion would pay for a lot of NHS training.

"Abolishing the non-dom regime would raise more than £3.2 billion each year"
London School of Economics. September 2022.

So, not a lie.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2022/i-September-22/Abolishing-the-non-dom-regime-would-raise-more-than-3.2-billion-each-year-finds-new-report

Sorry, should have added that the NHS currently spends £4 billion per annum on training, so £3.2 billion would be a game changing increase.

I'm not a tory, and don't especially care for anybody in politics. There's very little difference between one party and the next.

I'm old enough to have seen that 13 years of labour rule were far from utopia too. So am I and it was utopia compared with now.

People were poor Not half as many or as poor as they are now

people waited for health intervention

No they didn’t
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/summary-high-performing-nhs-progress-review-1997-2010-ruth-thorlby-jo-maybin-kings-fund-april-2010_0.pdf

we suffered a huge recession So did the rest of the planet, it was global.

people at the core, who actually make the decisions and direct policy, do not change.

They do. I remember Major’s government, they were bloody angels compared with this lot. Sensible grown ups who actually gave a shit about people other than themselves.

I agree with this. ALL Starmer does is slag the tidies off. He doesn’t say anything that has any substance whatsoever. Whenever he talks,

@Idratherbepaddleboarding what do you expect him to do? Magic masonry out of nowhere? Make the banks do something?

I’m pretty sure I won’t be voting tories (for a specific & entirely different reason to what’s going on at the minute but hod knows who I can choose as I dislike Starmer just as much.

Fortunately most people have copped on to that now. Yes some ultra loyalists are crying out for more lies, but the Tory party have succeeded in pissing off practically every demographic in the country with their lies, incompetence and corruption.

Including Conservative Party members and voters.

Why does no one even ask the question that tax rises for the very wealthy could be one measure to help bring inflation down?
because wealthy people are the ones that have access to power, they are either the ones who make the rules or they are the donors & backers thereof, they are in a position to make sure that the rules preserve existing power structures which benefit them
it's the way power works

I hope so too. While it's not my country, it is so frustrating looking at the world and trying to find any good leaders. Previously I was too busy/preoccupied to spend much time checking out the politics of other countries too deeply, and of course news stories tend to have their bias.

Now I think it is really important to understand what is going on in other countries and how populations feel about their government. As someone upthread said, I "don't know a lot about the Tories" and Labour except what I read in the news. So I was curious if there is a chance that Labour will come through and eventually make a difference or if it will be a case of just more politicians looking to line their pockets and not fulfill the promises they make. Are people looking to Labour as the least bad choice or because they are a solid party? It sounds like they will be in next GE, so I hope they will be good for Britain.

I don't really have anyone to talk world politcs with as most people are only interested in 'politics at home', so I enjoy the debates on MN especially when they are civil and based in facts.

"Why does no one even ask the question that tax rises for the very wealthy could be one measure to help bring inflation down?"

++++

Because making the "very wealthy" less well off may well indeed reduce demand for and bring down the price of say luxury cars, yachts, holidays or large houses. But sadly it will make bugger all impact on the price of say food or affordable houses etc.

Only by making everyone less well off can you reduce demand nationally and reduce inflation nationally.

That said you do raise an interesting point that rather than trying to reduce inflation by raising interest rates and making most people less well off, how about reducing inflation by raising income taxes on everyone and making them less well off that way.

It would potentially have the added benefit of reducing government debt as well.

It’s the squeezed middle who often vote Tory. I think he’s completely underestimated the rage felt by people in this group.

Seeing people on benefits get cost of living payments (as they should, so don’t start on me), while barely making ends meet yourself and getting nothing other than platitudes is what will lose them seats. Whilst we know it’s a distraction technique, it’s a bloody good one.

Time to throw that group a bone. Whether it’s a small tax rebate or something. But they won’t.

@BunnyBettChetwynnd
is there truly some hope that Labour will come through and make big changes?

*+++

It will be tough.

Given the economic shit we are in then most of the proposed tax rises or cuts and spending rises or cuts are basically tinkering around the edges making bugger all impact.

The big changes that would make an impact to Government debt / economy are all politically unacceptable. Such as:

Introducing a wealth tax
Changing the NHS from being free at point of use to a more day German insurance based model
Introduce earlier the increases in state pension age (or public sector pension age) .
Capital gains tax on all house sales
Abandoning climate goals in favour of cheaper dirtier energy
Massive house building schemes ignoring the green belt.

@MostlyHuman It's great to have you here talking about British politics. Another opinion from someone looking in from the outside is always interesting.

That’s super for you

Meanwhile doctors, nurses have left direct employment by NHS because they are unsurprisingly unhappy about 35%+ pay erosion. Unhappy and y accepting of it.
it’s probably 40-45% at ersosion by now.

Doesn’t affect me as I was disgusted at being treated so badly and am contractor to NHS now, getting paid what I should, if hadn’t had well below inflation pay rises for all these years of Tory government.

But don’t let facts interfere with your delusion

Typo

Unaccepting of the pay cuts

walk onto any hospital ward and you’ll find about 10% of the staff work directly for the NHS because we got too sick of being taken for mugs.

YANBU!

How can he have the first clue about what ordinary people are going through?!

@MostlyHuman the Tories have far exceed the acceptable level of lies, incompetence and corruption for a political party. The UK cannot fix the damage they've done as long as they are in power.

That's why they have to go.

You must be being sarcastic?!!!
Or are the Tory bots out tonight?