The UK has borrowed too much money, has a massive debt - £105 billion goes on paying our debt interest

[cakeorwine]

A good visual guide from the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2025/mar/24/visual-analysis-how-the-markets-boxed-in-rachel-reeves

But basically, the UK has had to rely on borrowing money as it spends more than it brings in.

It has borrowed money at low interest rates - but these rates have increased.

£105 billion on servicing debt interest. When you are borrowing a lot of money, even a small change in the interest level will massively increase the actual amount of money we need to pay on interest

Some context from the OBR on the budget

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/brief-guides-and-explainers/public-finances/

Income: £1149 billlion
Spending: £1276 billion
Of which £104 billion is on interest payments
Deficit: £127 billion

We need either more income, less spending and reduced interest payments.

Yes, so what, they paid taxes all their lives. Today's youngsters will be paying higher levels of "taxes". It's not some kind of savings scheme. Taxes today are paid for today's public spending, today's pensioners, today's public services, etc. It's how it's always been. Politicians have, for decades, over-spent and under-taxed and that's coming home to roost. Those with the biggest assets/wealth/savings need to be the ones to bear the brunt of tax rising or spending cuts. By that, I mean people with above average savings, above average incomes, etc. We need to start means testing ALL benefits including state pension, disability payments, etc. Start relatively high at say a household income of £100k - no one with that kind of household income needs any benefits - and I don't care if they've "paid all their lives" - they've got an income two or three times average income so they need to take more of the burden than, say, a worker on minimum or average wage.

They don't actually. If they are in receipt of housing benefit, they get a reduction. Doesn't apply to all council tenants, and doesn't even apply to all those in receipt of housing benefit.

I agree. RR has already made Labour unpopular, so it's probably the best time in a couple of decades to do some radical things for the long term benefit of the country.

Welfare needs to be massively cut. No households should be on benefits for decades. Make it contribution based and time limited with the exception of the very disabled (as it is in other countries, including Germany, I believe).

The elephant in the room is the cost of housing. The welfare system massively props up rents which makes housing unaffordable to buy and means those that don't claim benefits are priced out because they need to earn so much (after tax) to pay rent. It's completely normal in London, for example, for people on UC to be getting thousands a month in housing benefit help (UC element) which does nothing except make housing unaffordable and line the pockets of already very rich landlords (and the taxpayer basically buys them an asset) whilst artificially propping up rents and house prices.

Reducing housing benefits would reduce costs for everyone as rents would fall if based on ability to pay rather than an artificial floor, free up housing for those that currently have to commute (at great expense) from outside London because they can't compete with London housing benefit (UC element) rates and are not entitled to social housing. The system makes the rich richer and penalises workers who don't get any state help. No wonder productivity is through the floor!

I agree with pretty much everything you say.

Unfortunately the VI in keeping the system the way it is is strong.

I was hoping under Labour we might get fundamental policy changes. To me the most dangerous example of imbalances is when you get one government in charge for a long time, but then when the other replaces it they double down with exactly the same policies.

So for example in housing (a bugbear of mine), Thatcher basically bought in the right to buy, fair enough at the time. But then during the 10 years that followed Tony Blair and Labour basically doubled down on this (Blair built fewer council houses in his entire tenure than the supposedly "anti council housing" Thatcher did in 1 year of hers). That's led to some of the issues we see in the rental sector, housing problems and housing affordability now.

Re Labour currently, they just seem like Tory lite with a few woke distraction policies tacked on to try to control the faithful. The imbalances are continuing and they are not doing anything about it. But in my opinion there is great opportunity through change, but it going to take great pain for some sections (middle class especially as those are the people with assets) to go through those changes. So takes a leader with guts and determination and a vision greater than the next 5 years. Not how our democracy is set up.

Definitely I see increasing inheritance tax and undoing the loopholes as just, I see it more as the older section of society paying for services they never properly paid for in the first place but funded through borrowing. I don't see the fairness in making the young pay for this. But again making this change seems very difficult, especially since huge numbers of people see inheritance tax as a negative even though they themselves will never pay it.

I agree totally with the unearned income issues. But again the VI there is strong, and the screaming is going to be incredible when the shifts finally start to happen.

Unfortunately most people don't spend enough time thinking about or voting on economic issues beyond what is important to them. This probably means we are going to end up having a deep collapse followed by radical changes followed by recovery rather than a managed transition to new policies that work.

Probably I would say on housing. Housing is a great way to tax people as it is immovable and the asset stays in the UK

That is the only real option left I think

We never recovered from 08 and low interest rates just masked a lot.

The only option is more taxation but we have to spread it across everyone.

My health service? I can assure you that my parents’ experience of that has been far better than mine. My mother had the experience of ‘lying in’ for a week at a local hospital that shut down decades ago. My second birth was abroad where they still do that: odd how other countries can still afford these things. I am increasingly convinced that I would have died on the NHS.

• They need to be means tested Disability payments only to those earning under 60 Thousand ,for example*

But what about older people who earn under that but have hundreds of thousands of pounds of housing equity.

Housing inflation and wage stagnation has created so much intergenerational inequality and really fucked the economy.

They are evil for cutting disability and incapacity benefits because it will end up costing more and hurting the economy more. You can’t cut your way to a growing economy’s . We already have 1 million more unemployed than there are job vacancies, adding another 2 million disabled isn’t going to magic up enough jobs. In fact, by targeting the majority of the cuts on PIP, they are going to push tens of thousands of disabled people out of work, but who cares right? The fit and healthy are always the priority for work, which is why £1bn of the money snatched out of the hands of the disabled will be handed to contractors to set up and run a youth employment assistance service.

To an extent, but it can't be tax alone. We also need to reduce the total benefits bill, and grow the economy.

They also paid tax and NI all their lives.

The vast majority won't have paid enough to cover their state pension. Thats why changing demographics matter

To an extent, but it can't be tax alone. We also need to reduce the total benefits bill, and grow the economy.

That's the conundrum. How do you create growth?

Yes and the young today won’t be able to retire until they’re at least 70 if not older. There may not even be a state pension (due to rapidly decreasing birth rates), so many will live in poverty.

In the past as housing costs were much, much lower so a couple could comfortably survive on one wage. Many more women stayed at home as housewives (and who never really worked full time jobs despite their children being grownup) so these people haven’t actually “paid in” all their lives.

As a poster said earlier, shift the balance of taxation from earned to unearned income.

So higher CGT and asset taxes.

Think about how much money goes into servicing mortgages, paying rent. How so much of that rent is topped up by tax payers money and rather than going back to the government goes to landlords.

As a poster said earlier, shift the balance of taxation from earned to unearned income.

So higher CGT and asset taxes.

This makes sense but so many are outraged about recent higher CT on their 2nd properties that they own but don't rent out. Many people feel
entitled and don't want systems to change.

People have paid in all their lives.

What they haven't done is pay enough.

That's one of the reasons we now have £3 trillion debt and a government that is petrified of borrowing more because of what the markets will do as a consequence.

What they haven't done is pay enough.

They should put this message on the buses!

Yup - pensions need means testing for sure.
We also need to build more social housing and infrastructure related to that.
Potential land tax (could be very achievable once the government bring in compulsory registration of currently unregistered land which is currently being looked at).

Yes that’s completely right! Haven’t paid enough in.

Agree with many of the suggestions here.

Replace council tax and stamp duty with a 0.5% annual charge based on home value. They have something similar in California.

Ban the sale of U.K. homes to non-residents.

Remove the right to buy discount and build more council homes.

Keep the level of disability benefits unchanged but massively tighten eligibility so that numbers are similar to 10 years ago so no benefits for ADHD, ASD only for the most severe cases and none for anxiety. No mobility free car unless for a disability that means that one cannot walk unaided.

For children, DLA to be replaced with vouchers for therapy etc so that any money is spent to help the actual disability and to remove the incentive to have children diagnosed.

Make child benefit universal again, and the same for childcare. The disincentives to work caused by the means testing are wholly disproportionate.

A capital gains tax is a tax on the gain you’ve made. This is a tax on the current value of the property. Nothing to do with your purchase price at all. Same basis as the current council tax, but more reflective of the current value of your property rather than a past value and no limits on tax for mansions. Works really well in a lot of Western European countries.

I love the idea that all the OAPs plotted this like evil bond villains laughing as they sit there screwing over their grandkids in their glorious 1930’s semis in lovely towns.

they just got on with living, paid what was asked.
like we all do.

if the governments didn’t ask for more that was the issue. Not the pensioners.

it was all thatchers fault for right to buy, and privatisation of everything. Then successive governments not reversing it