To wonder what could Starmer do, to turn things around?

[B0xes]

He was elected on fewer votes than Corbyn with very lukewarm support, the Tories lost that election, Labour did not sweep in on a tide of public approval, they just benefitted from peoples anger at the Conservatives. Since then, Starmers approval rating has tanked. He seems to have gone from one ill judged move to the next and seems totally tone deaf in speeches. Can he turn it around? What would he need to do?

NI only applies to income from employment though, for everyone. If we start applying it to one benefit, then maybe it should be applied to others. Child benefit, for example?

I agree though that if someone over pension age is working, they should pay NI, which they don't currently.

What funded benefits are you thinking of? Bus passes? Only funded for actual journeys taken. Free prescriptions? 95% of all prescriptions in England are filled free of charge, they’re not all going to pensioners. I can’t think of anything else. If you can I’d love to know about them.

They have paid their fair share already. I am not talking about pensioners on 50k, I am concerned about pensioners on 12k or so. Those just over the pension credit threshold. There are people who resent pensioners getting 12K a year.

They HAVEN'T "paid their fair share already" though! It's ongoing! Otherwise billionaires would have paid their share in a month or two and be done! And fair enough if the threshold needs to be made a bit higher.

Just putting this here:

The International Monetary Fund has upgraded its forecast for UK growth this year in its biannual assessment of the global economy, while taking a swipe at plans by Donald Trump’s incoming US administration for the potentially destabilising effect of large-scale tax cuts, import tariffs and weaker regulations.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/17/imf-upgrades-uk-growth-forecast-and-takes-swipe-at-trump-plans?CMP=ShareAndroidAppOther

The standard pensioner claim is that "they paid in all their lives".

Well they did. But they didn't pay enough. Otherwise we wouldn't be 2 trillion in debt. Mainly due to things like under taxation and excessive COVID spending. The COVID spending mainly occurred to support the older in society.

The thing is there are a lot of poor pensioners out there. But there are a lot of rich ones too. The easiest way to increase funding is through inheritance taxes.

That way no low income pensioner is going to suffer.

But if the government implements an increase in inheritance tax everyone screams "a tax on death!" and it appears to boil the blood even of those who aren't actually going to get taxed (very few estates actually pay IHT at the moment).

This is why the country generally is screwed. And the only way we will be able to reduce the debt levels is either through growth (which the government at the moment seems determined to stifle at every possibility) or through spending cuts.

Because no one actually wants to pay any more tax. Even if it is after they are dead.

Perhaps before you introduce taxation on profits it is necessary to show that the alternative does not exist or does not work.

The government made it clear that THEY were not increasing tax/NI for working people.

The budget increased tax/NI for employers not employees.

The employers chose to pass on increases to employees (and the rest of us through increased costs) in order to retain profits (inflated in recent years).

There has been a huge increase in inequality and profitability in recent years. Combined with an increase of state funded in work benefits. Low wages propped up by in work benefits that increase profit. High rents paid to private landlords by the state.

What more proof is required that taxing profit is the only just way of reducing state expenditure and inequality?

I do think a government needs to focus on pensioners, pensions and the benefits they get. As more and more people reach pension age and live longer once they are in it, a lot of the things pensioners get have become unsustainable in the volume they are now handed out.
This will not be popular because there is still a lot of romance (for want of a better word) about pensioners who fought in the war (you see it on every thread about pensioners, when in reality even the oldest pensioners around today would not have fought in the war but been children at the time).
On my list to look at would be:
Pensions triple lock - unique to pensions, this should be scrapped and rises brought in line with other benefit rises;
Free prescriptions for over-60s. This makes no sense in view of today's retirement ages. Free prescriptions should be limited to lower-income pensioners only, although this might cost more than it saves
Free bus passes - nice to have but we can't afford it
Free TV licence for over-75s - as above
And lastly - and this is a controversial one - I think pension credit should start to be phased out as people reach retirement age. I am 58 and I have had ample opportunity, warning and information about employee and private pensions, and those who have chosen not to take these up should not be subsidised by those who have. Keep it for those who get it now - we don't want another WASPI outcry - but give ample warning and start to phase it out.
We need to think more about the young, who seem to be ignored at best and shafted at worst every which way they turn.

@PocketSand

The government made it clear that THEY were not increasing tax/NI for working people....The budget increased tax/NI for employers not employees.

Not quite. The increase in employers NIC has hit lots of workers who work via agencies, umbrellas or their own limited companies if caught by IR35 where employers NIC comes out of their "day/hourly rate", so it has hit a lot of "workers" simply due to the way they're paid. There is no additional cost to the "employer" for such workers - it's ALL borne by the worker themselves. Just another area where the politicians havn't thought it through properly. It's noteworthy that those same people were some of the group of the 3 million excluded from Covid support because they weren't "traditional" employees eligible for furlough, nor "traditional" self employed eligible for SEISS. So basically screwed over a second time!

On phasing out pension credit, I agree in general. It exists because of the changes that happened a few years ago when there were two tiers for pensions. Older pensioners (my late DM) received about £30pw less than the 'modern' pension so it was a means to level the playing field. But there can't be many people left on that now.

@taxguru forgive my ignorance - will this be addressed by new worker's right bill? Employees responsible for employer tax due to payment method seems a clear tax dodge.

They've fucked the economy with the employers' NI rise. My company needs to find £100m. We're slashing jobs. All because of Rachel from accounts' shit choices. You cannot trust Labour with the economy - just a shame the recent iterations of the Tories have also been awful.

I agree on benefits but pensions are not a "Benefit" they are not a safety net, the NIC may not be a savings scheme as such but the implication has always been that you pay your NI and in return get a pension.

You cannot suddenly just take this away....

@Katypp @Papyrophile I absolutely agree in principle but what will they do with the pensioners who didn't save? They can't just let them die. It's like saying we will abolish unemployment benefits because people should save when they can: I don't disagree in principle but we can't leave people to die because they are useless.

A £100m.... friend of ours runs a company employing 150 people, his additional NI costs will be 100k....

The Ni increase is 1.3% plus payable on a lower amount now, approx 2/3% are you seriously telling us your companies wage bill runs into the 10s of billions ???

There will be more on the lower pension than the modern one which was only introduced in 2016. Anyone reaching state pension age before that is on the old one, ie everyone older than about 73.

That's why there people need to be put on notice now for the changes in the future. I'm nt talking about pulling the rug from under people's feet now or even in 10 years time, but anyone in the workforce aged under 40 should have time to start and make arrangements for when they retire.
I'm just talking about pension top-ups, not the actual pension.

But if you put it on employers it feeds through to employees in lower wages or higher product cost. If the company cannot raise it's product cost because of overseas business competition then it goes bust.

It's effectively a stealth tax.

The lie of Labour was that we could have better services but no one was going to pay higher taxes. Now they are stuffed because they promised the better services but have realised they can't do it without raising spending, and therefore taxes, because borrowing has been cut off by the markets.

Sunak said this was going to happen, but everyone called him a liar.

Thank you for the clarification on the old/new pension split @BIossomtoes. Guessing that the people (mainly men I suspect) fortunate enough to have had defined benefit or index-linked pensions were/are not affected too badly but that the hardship is experienced by older women who didn't work full time while their DC were very young, or who fell victim to unfair divorce settlements. DM worked until she was 78 in adult social care, latterly PT. I think she had about £50 per month from the NHS pension to top up a pre-2016 pension.

@Alexandra2001 I work for a huge multinational. That's the figure we've seen.

Of course, the other way of looking at it is millions of women who did not pay their full stamp - or even nothing - still got/get pensions. My mum stopped working when I was born and she has always had a state pension.
This is a problem largely in the past, but it won't help I suppose.

So whats the alternative? would you have borrowed? cut services? or raise taxes on employees instead?

Our public services from education to health to councils services cannot carry on as they have for the last 14 years.

Considering Sunak cut NI by 4% which costing the Exchequer he has little credibility, he did this without providing the funding for it, other than to say the Disabilities benefits bill would be cut!

Employees got on average an £800 pay rise by this cut, if they now have to have a slightly lower pay rise, then so be it...

RR could have reversed the NI cut the Tories had introduced just months earlier.
There would have been complaints but it would have made more sense and would probably have been easier and quicker to implement.
But Labour showed their inexperience by painting themselves into a corner with their election promise of not raising taxes for working people.
By introducing raised employer NI they have stalled growth, hampered small businesses and gone back on the spirit of their election pledge in one fell swoop.
0 out of 10.

The Tories would have had a field day if Lab had opposed the NI cut, they would have had to defend why they were denying a substantial pay rise to millions of workers during a cost of living crisis.

"There would have been complaints" is a huge understatement.

You'll have to get a job with the Tories 2029 election team and advise them that if they want to win the next GE, telling the public "We will raise your taxes" is a winning slogan.

Teressa May lost her majority with a far smaller tax rise promise on Social Care, which Labour called the "Death Tax" or similar.

The way you re talking, you'd think Reeves doubled NI, its increased by 1.3%, which a lot lower than the 2% predicted.... NI is now also payable on a lower limit of earnings.

The social care tax or something similar is desperately needed. Lack of social care for the elderly is literally KILLING the NHS and also plenty of our citizens sadly.