To think that there is no hope here?

[Taxed]

52.6% of UK individuals are reliant on the State (that is 35 million people). Only 47.4% are net contributors. How did we get here?

AIBU to think that the UK is now a declining economy that will never recover if this continues to be the case?

I am 49 and a high earner (just shy of the top 1%). My husband is also a high earner and we are thinking of leaving. We don't know where but we know we have to as the situation in the UK is getting worse not better. The only thing that is keeping us here is our son, who is still in secondary school. I am actively encouraging him to consider a future outside of the UK.

I genuinely feel that being ambitious and successful is not worth it in the UK. People hate you for it and want to see you penalised. They think that whatever you do to earn the money it must be easy and a breeze. That you are greedy and need to be made to pay for doing well. Just last week, I heard that the government might be thinking of implementing a charge, payable by high earners, to access the NHS. Everything is about taxing the already heavily taxed even more and few want to face up to the fact that this is unsustainable when you have most of your people relying on the State to live.

People complain about the immigrants but they make up a tiny proportion of 35 million.

I feel disliked for doing well and just can't see a future here and it is making me angry and sad. I believe in having a welfare state, in helping those who are in need but 52.6%? The country is on its knees when most of its people are in need. That is like a developing country not a developed and thriving economy.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm just tired, sad and have just about lost hope of enjoying life in the UK.

And the taxes. Such an own goal. Other countries are more than happy to attract high payers.

Thank goodness for the Republicans.

Trump team ‘greatly concerned’ after Labour spies on migrant hotel critics
Whitehall unit used by the Government to target social media posts with ‘concerning narratives’

It's really strange how the country isn't a paradise after years and years of governments favouring the interests of the very wealthy.

You'd think by now we'd have great public services and plentiful good quality social housing..

The USA has just given enormous tax breaks to the wealthy so in about four years time we should see all the fantastic benefits right?

Nope. Genuine claimants are not in the minority. Don’t know where you’ve done your last minute googling but you’re still wrong.

Plenty of facts. Not my fault if you’re prejudice stops you from recognising them.

👀

Another week, another tedious 'I'm leaving the UK' thread. 🙄

No you won't @Taxed You won't leave.

Also, how funny that you think you can pick a country, and just go and live there. They might not want you! You're not picking a bloody car you know! 😂

I think you might need a little lie down.

I'm guessing that you haven't read about the Whitehall unit scanning social media which was set up during COVID. They're looking for key phrases, not reading everything. It's quite real.

No. I explained how the figures work. The number of new claims are offset by those coming off PIP for various reasons - they’re not included in the figures and not my problem if you can’t get your head around that. Genuinely disabled people on PIP are not the minority they are the majority. I’ve given you the facts and those facts are as a result of over twenty years as a disability outreach worker, working every day with actual people and seeing at grass roots level how these benefits work.

With each post you are demonstrating more and more that you have no idea what these benefits are designed to do, and you have no idea of the real world effects of disability. My posts are based on real life experience. Yours appear to be based on Google and a willingness to swallow everything the media and press feed you.

Oh, I know it's depressingly a thing. I just think if pp's now having to resort to Trump to support her rhetoric, times really must be getting hard.

The data and the news flow support my views. Nice try with the ‘rhetoric’, though.

Do you have any views of your own, incidentally?

Ps. Times are getting hard, thanks in part to Starmer and his chums.

Donald Trump’s administration has said it is “greatly concerned” about free speech in Britain after The Telegraph exposed a secretive Whitehall unit “spying ” on critics of migrant hotels.

On Thursday, it was revealed that civil servants monitored social media posts about asylum hotels and “two-tier” policing during the Southport riots last year.
A spokesman for the US State Department said Washington was monitoring the issue “closely and with great concern”.

It comes as US officials and congressmen raised wider concerns over free speech in the UK and the regulation of social media, warning that the Online Safety Act risks a “chilling impact on real political speech”.

Starmer must be soiling himself.

I doubt it somehow. If anyone thinks the US is above reproach they’re not paying attention.

I very much doubt it. It's very Chinese in its Inception. Big brother is not just watching any more but acting upon information culled.

Still waiting….

Your taxes are propping up all the businesses that pay wages too low to live on.

The population is getting sick and tired.

Follow the money. Us peasants don’t have it under our mattresses! Your higher-ups have it in their offshore savings accounts.

Yeah but where I live the spiralling costs are

My local council 30% increase in three years £350 pcm. This year.

My water board 27% increase this year.

My car tax £315 this year.

There's VAT on insurance policies now.

Energy taxes to pay for wind and solar power.

What's left I can spend on food. Whoopee.

It's obscene how much of our money goes straight into government coffers percentage wise these days.

I can't emigrate but don't blame those that do.

Let’s observe Starmer, he’s proven himself to be a snivelling and obsequious little creep when it comes to Trump, and he just loves a u-turn, as we know.

Watch, and learn.

I've got plenty of views, thank you, but I'm under no obligation to share them with internet randoms, especially not those who think debate means trying to browbeat others.

You say it’s not her place to question what’s fair — but it’s people like us who live with the consequences of the system you benefit from. We don’t get to ‘mitigate’ our poverty, or move abroad to escape precarity. You do. That’s power. That’s why it’s our place to speak.

You might see your taxes as a burden, but for many of us, they’re the threadbare safety net that’s kept us from falling through completely. You might see it as “generosity”. We see it as a basic civic responsibility.

No one’s asking you to martyr yourself. We’re asking you to recognise that you didn’t build your wealth in a vacuum. You used roads you didn’t pay for, were protected by laws you didn’t write, and benefited from the labour of others you’ll never meet. You have freedoms fought for by us peasants.

Do you believe you owe anything to the society that enabled your success? Or do you just want to cash out and run?

I genuinely feel that being ambitious and successful is not worth it in the UK. People hate you for it and want to see you penalised. They think that whatever you do to earn the money it must be easy and a breeze

I genuinely feel like high earners have no clue about the myriads of people who earn far less but who are absolutely essential to their success in their high earning roles: the cleaners, chefs, baristas, shop assistants, telecoms engineers, builders, electricians, secretaries, admin assistants….and the wider role of the professionals who earn far less such as teachers, social workers, allied health professionals, nurses etc etc. We ALLhave a place in ensuring society functions. Not just the high earners. And most importantly, the high earners do not have the monopoly on hard work.

Fight for the removal of benefit support by ensuring that a living wage is paid to everyone who gets out of bed and works full time, perhaps? Recognise that you are part of a bigger team and that your success is dependent on others functioning well for far less cash than you earn? Maybe then, when their is mutual understanding and respect, people wouldn’t hate your success but would, alternatively, feel proud to have been a part of it?

So true. How quickly the lessons of the pandemic are forgotten.

I shall simply answer the question contained in your final paragraph - with cold, hard facts.

As a family, we have paid significant - and I mean eye-watering - amounts of tax over the past 35+ years. My annual tax bill has exceeded what many will pay in a lifetime. No protests from me. But since Labour came in, the rhetoric and fiscal policy has shifted markedly - very ‘anti-wealth’, and capital has flown and is in flight. Meanwhile, the public services you mention continue to deteriorate.

So, enough is enough. You can call it cut and run - I call it protecting my family, as you would seek to protect yours.

Uriah Heap comes to mind. He truly gives me the ick.