To wonder how the UK will look in 3 years time?

[Labradorlover987]

I was inspired to write this after reading the UC post that was just reported - the govt’s welfare bill has passed but was watered down so unlikely to make any real savings.

I earn 40k, have a school age child and just feel like I am living hand to mouth 😩 I 100% think there should be a welfare systems that supports people on low incomes but I wonder how the current system will be sustained in the long run?

Just wondered what other people thought.

I actually wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes if we could be guaranteed more in services etc - for example my council tax just went up and the services seem even worse this year than usual.

Oh by “putting taxes on staff” you meant taxes employers pay not employees?

yes make sense. Certainly not a particularly interesting or excessive tax increase, but coming at a time where COL crisis is impacting employers it’s been hard to contain, agreed.

We're leaving once youngest finishes university to South East Asia (dual passport) and living off our investments. Everything is much much cheaper including private healthcare. Have some ideas for starting a business there but won't really need to work.

Kids unlikely to stay here, one will probably end up in the tech sector in the US. The other is a teacher so can work anywhere in the world.

The UK is well past it's peak and I think it's heading to Dickens's era poverty.

Cost of living is insane in Canada. Italy isn’t an economy you’d particularly want to be involved in, and the facism is even worse than here but I can see the attraction of the scenery. Switzerland doesn’t really let anyone in

I thought exactly the same about the wealthy needing the plebs to be behaving themselves or else they’re all going to need to be holed up on islands and gated communities to be kept safe. I honestly assumed that that’s why Musk was trying to get to Mars. So the wealthy elite could start a new community away from the heathens.

I thought the new landlord legislation was going to make it much more difficult to evict tenants? I heard Raynor championing it recently in an interview.

Would you make sure the help is in place first, or just make the cuts and hope for the best?

Well the question was specifically about tax...

But surely you aren't suggesting that these things are mutually exclusive?

Most economists and economic institutions - OECD, the IMF, and the World Bank etc - now agree that current levels of inequality hamper growth. We won't get more productive without tackling this.

Do you have any suggestions of how to decrease inequality without progressive taxation? Genuine question. It's the solution that's important, not the method, after all.

More thinking retirement we have EU passports and can self fund

Eldest wants to be where there is scientific investment in particular areas (and he has an EU passport)

Youngster - at the moment he’s got well almost everything you need academic, social and emotional intelligence, hardworking ethic, a balanced amount of competitiveness, teamwork. fairness and a plan apparently. He’ll be abe to go wherever he wants.

We’ve told the youngsters if you want to go, go young, get established elsewhere, it gets progressively harder. They are already mid teens they don’t have the time to piss about waiting to see if things get better in the UK it could easily take their entire working lives.

They will both move via higher educational opportunities I am wiling to bet.

It’s part of the discussion, the UK could shine more in international development but society seems to dislike progressive ambition at the moment and wants to squabble over it not being fair a brown person gets a GP appointment or a school place. Who wants to live through this?

If we had known the UK was going to leave the EU, and the change in society because of that referendum, we would’ve moved to Frankfurt in 2008/9, hindsight eh! So we as adults will have to find another route, but our teens, they could go if they play it right.

3 more years with Rachel balancing the books, we will be in trouble.
NHS will be on its last legs, taxes through thr roof, pension and welfare recipients will be hit.

I’m not really sure how that’s related tbh?

can self fund

Bingo!

Not for care in the home. All other income is - neighbour is a retired teacher, single lady. Lives in a small property, 2 bedrooms.

Average life expectancy in the UK is 81. Now I know we’ve established that numbers aren’t your strong point but I make 67 to 81 a difference of 14 years, not 40.

Something like a wealth tax of 2% on assets over £10 million. To make it work, you’d have to know what all their stuff is worth – houses, shares, businesses, even things held in trusts – and make sure they can’t hide it in complicated company structures. That means better public records of who owns what, sharing information with other countries, and giving the tax office more staff to check and enforce the rules. Countries like Norway and Switzerland already do this, so it’s doable if the government is serious about it.

Well yes as an older UK citizen it’s what you have to do
We didn’t vote Leave, but the country did, so the country has to live with that decision

It’s made it much harder to move out if you want to, we had a whole chunk of Europe we could’ve moved to with reciprocal benefits.

The immigration issues have not transpired as desired, and as a nation that historically had an empire and could strut around wherever we want, being essentially trapped from even easily moving to the Costa del Sol nowadays is messing with the collective psyche. So we are taking it it on whomever we can punch down to.

We have no real physical assets, a lot of the things we can export is from our population, services, ethics, creativity, academic research, but all these things are becoming increasingly disliked as a nation. So people with those qualities are still in demand but instead of being able to stay in the UK with investment flowing in, it’s easier, and cheaper, to move the individuals.

Once we get rid of the BBC our influence will crumble, and we will, because they are all leftwing woke apparently and that is all bad bad bad.

Not for care in the home.

which was my point

Really? I think some people would be surprised to find out what living in another country is truly like. It is easy to downtalk the UK, and lots of politicians want us to think negatively about our country, but I think/know that other countries have issues too, and some of those are quite shocking compared to what happens here. I am only talking about European countries here, as that is my area of knowledge - anyone got any comparisons with other continents?

I think it’s really hard to know what another country is like even when you live there. Immigrants often won’t experience life the way locals do, and won’t be exposed to the things locals are.

look at the disagreement on this thread about what it’s like to live in the uk- where presumably most of us have lived all our lives- you reckon you can move to Spain at 40 and gain the same kind of understanding of life there?

also I think it’s natural to look to other countries that have systems or initiatives you like with longing without having an real idea what life or culture is like in those countries

I don't think much will change in three years although Labour backbenchers may insist on replacing Starmer with someone less depressing. However, I think an alternative Reform+ opposition bloc will have formed by then and there will be an offer for the forthcoming 2029 election of quite blunt right-wing policies.

No more economic migration for the term of the next Parliament.
Leave the ECHR and offer asylum seekers on boats the choice of staying here in what is effectively a prison, or being repatriated at the taxpayer's cost.
No right to be housed if unemployed, and a diagnosis of anxiety / depression will no longer suffice to access benefits.
A variety of populist anti-Islam measures such as banning Islamic faith schools and the full face veil.

Labour / Starmer will have continued to limit the right to protest but the Reform+ opposition won't be making any promises to restore it.

The only non-working group that won't be touched, as ever, will be pensioners (because their votes count), although the pension age will increase to 70.

This Reform+ opposition will get elected in 2029 unless Labour can pull a rabbit out of a hat, most likely with some kind of deal with the EU that allows the UK back into the single market. I do think that might be more possible than people assume, but probably not by 2029.

They’re not increasing pensionable age anything like average lives are increasing.

healthy life expectancy matters though, also live expectancy varies where you live.

I’m guessing they aren’t an economic immigrant and pay their own way, so they have probably assimilated very well into the local population.

Because you said the following;

Now if you don’t pay your rent you’ll be evicted the same way a person who works for all their income would be. Previously people who had their rent paid by benefits wouldn’t give bill paying a second thoughts and had no consequences to checking out of the normal responsibilities of society.

The goal is Portugal!

My friend owns a café in central London. She said that Labour has ruined her business. They can’t afford the staff now so life is harder for existing staff and she may have to close. She’s a lifelong Green voter and says she will be voting for reform next. That was a surprise to me, but I’m sure she has her reasons as a business owner.

Will that "wealth" tax be worth the risk of losing the other much higher taxes that he does pay? Don't you understand that taxing people more will just prompt them to leave? What about the people who just take from the system and never pay in to it?