What Rachel Reeves does next? Surprised no thread on this yet. It's all over Twitter

[Sharingsomewisdom]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13764547/Rachel-Reeves-mulls-tax-hikes-spending-squeeze-raising-rents-social-housing-Chancellor-sees-Government-borrow-3bn-forecast-month.html

Or am I the only one interested what she is eying next? Any comment on the reasonableness or otherwise of Rachel's next focus?

@Aduvetday

strongly agree with everything you're saying apart from short term.

They will give voting rights to 16yo who are usually very pro-Labour (some of them are Reform now).

I don't think Tory will pull it through by next election, there is no Leader figure in sight and I don't mean their leadership contest.

I'm worried that disillusioned electorate next time will go for Reform, especially if Farage is clever enough to higher some shit hot campaigner like Cummings. Yes, he is much hated but you can't deny his mastery in running campaign

Reform knocked Labour into fourth place in local constituencies here. Constituencies where there is a lot of money and land ownership. Not the working class disenfranchised - often mistakenly called racists by others. The issue is, no-one is listening and it means people will continue to vote for parties like Reform. I share your concern. People simplify it far too much as they don’t understand the finer nuances of the delicate situation. Much like the huge “look over here” red rag - VAT on school fees. All the while the real intentions were there for those paying attention. It is why many felt they couldn’t vote at all.

I'd support a moderate increase in social housing rents to put towards new housebuilding.
Thanks god those Tory lying crony loving shits have gone. The country will be a lot better now they've gone snivelling back to their newspaper columns, companies, wherever.

In 2010? The Tories inherited an economy that was showing green shoots and rather than nurture them, they ripped them up and stamped on them with ideological austerity.

As for Reform, not sure about that one! Your pal Farage is doing his best to stop people voting for them again. Fool me once kind of thing.

I challenge that. Show me the evidence.

Reading some of the posts: does anyone know what communism is?

It’s not that difficult to figure out. Extremely unequal society, non-functioning health care system, poverty pay, benefits that fall well
short of covering absolute basics, broken public services then all the other disasters on top - Covid, Brexit, repercussions of the war on Ukraine… if you set out to design a society where people suffer illness and disability you couldn’t make a more effective job of it than the Tories. The new govt needs to work on addressing all this before they bring out the big stick but us disabled people are well used to being targeted.

That was already going, the last government t said they wouldn’t renew it.

The benefits system absolutely needs to be looked. crazy amounts of money being spent.

It could be because heirs are persuaded to sell the house at a price which means they don't have to, or they inherit property worth less that £350K.

If she increases the IHT percent it won't make a difference. It will just enable property managers and landlords to persuade the heirs more easily.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/heat-mortality-monitoring-reports/heat-mortality-monitoring-report-2023

https://www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk/over-1000-dead-in-december-2022-due-to-cold-homes/

2300 died in the hot weather in 2023

2700 died in the cold weather 21/22

its closer than i thought it would be but isn’t that still more deaths from cold

i think its worse to be very cold, you don’t have to die to make it a miserable existence and some people are living in a house thats been cold for 3 months and never got a chance to warm

Over the course of the whole of winter 2021/22 there were 2,731 excess winter deaths in England caused by living in cold damp homes. [2]
Figures calculated by the Coalition using official government data (including that from devolved statistical bodies), puts the total excess winter deaths in the UK for winter 2021/22 at 15,069. [3]
3,240 of these were as a result of living in cold conditions
Over the last ten years, the average number of deaths each winter in the UK caused by cold damp homes now stands at 7,409.

That link by @BIossomtoes shows that in 2021/22 there was a total of 3240 deaths related to living in cold conditions.

Cross posted.

No, it’s because very few estates attract it.

I’m in a HA flat. Just over the saving limit for any benefits but living of a small fixed income after having to retire early. As it is I go to the wire each month when it comes to what I live on. My HA puts up the rent the maximum they’re allowed to each year but it’s the service charges that are the killer as they’re uncapped . I can barely afford the rises of both of these elements each year. I don’t know what else I can cut back on if rent and charges go up much more .

One death is one too many, badly insulated homes are also the very ones that are terrible in the heat too.

Really can't follow this argument.

And yet benefits demonstrably don’t cover the cost of a very basic lifestyle, and claims for disability benefits are routinely refused, with those that go to tribunal having a high success rate.
I suppose you could argue that the wholesale transfer of public money to private landlords is an expense we really could do without. But otherwise you need to fix socio-economic inequality, end poverty pay and get NHS waiting lists down as low as possible before you can reasonably expect to see a reduction in the benefits bill.

So they can pay taxes to feed the illegal immigrants? I am not against immigration. My best care helpers are from other countries, but they are legal.

You can not get NHS waiting lists down. Think about it. It needs not explanation. Ever thought that for some people DLA and PIP is sometimes compensation for the NHS failing?

If she taxes private health, then there will be a lot more NHS patients.
Having taxed private education, the state schools with be overcrowded. She just could not wait, like a child working in a sweet shop or bakery, told they can eat what they like, and don't know where to start and takes a bite out of everything. People who pay for private medicine, still have the national insurance deducted from their salary.

We have state schools made of dodgy concrete waiting to be rebuilt. There is a universal shortage of teachers. Where do you put the pupils who have to leave private schools? Parents who educate their children privately still have to pay for state education.

Why is this government raising taxes? If you think it is because there is a hole in a budget somewhere, it is not. There may be tears in budgets, but not a hole such as her tax increases make.

Sir Keir promised in June that he would process illegal immigrants faster. He did: he let them all stay. If that was wise, wouldn't the previous government have done that? If the conservatives had said ''let them all stay we cannot process them fast enough'', what would your reaction be to that.

So what you are saying is that the winter fuel payments were so successful that less pensioners died of cold that died of heat?

That will be reversed during the winter months now, and a cull of the elderly, not from covid, but from hypothermia.

All that will please are those who resent disability payments and Attendance Allowance.

Welcome to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Now that, is rubbish. When was the last time you looked at homes for sale?

It is the Labour Party telling the people they say they represent that there are enough rich folks out there who can be taxed sufficiently to make all the poor rich.

It is a myth. There are rich people, but not enough to make the 'poor' rich.

It depends on how you spend your money, whether you keep it, gamble it, buy drugs with it, go on fancy holidays with it, or save it.

Like the "Boomers" paid off the war debt to the USA.... you're people conveniently forget that!

It brings to mind someone tying a piece of string to a ££50 note, putting it on the ground and when someone bends to pick it up, pulls it under the fence for the next sap.

Don't forget the black mould which kills children.