Uk is in big trouble - what do you think will happen?

[hippysun]

Thames water on brink of collapse. All those CEOs getting fat bonuses. Water shortages and rising bills.

the cost of living is off the chart. Every bill has gone up. Pop in to Tesco for toothpaste, butter and chicken and it costs an insane amount for just a few items.

the government are crap and taxing the hell out of us.

my salary is stuck. I feel constantly poor now. 10 years ago when I earned significantly less, I felt ok money wise. Chatted today to a colleague about science graduate son who is stuck doing a minimum wage job as there are no jobs here. I’ve noticed this myself in my town. The council have a few, other companies outsourced to India years ago, the pharma company moved out years ago and the land will soon be a new housing estate.

the nhs is a total mess.

housing costs make me want to weep! No chance of moving. Feel bad for my kids. They just keep building expensive houses here all packed into poorly designed estates. Tiny gardens. But no infrastructure. The promised schools get cancelled and drs surgeries and hospitals are rammed with patients. My mortgage of course is up.

in my industry… everyone is obsessed with AI and I’m sad to say it has taken some jobs already. There is a huge push towards AI.

there seems to be underlying tension here re migrants. People getting increasingly annoyed.

this country feels like a right mess. Making rich people richer and poor people even poorer. The middle earners are getting squeezed. I hate it.

i don’t remember it being this bad ever before.

why is it so terrible? And what do you think will happen?

I doubt very much Reeves didn't expect some hit but you haven't answered "Where does the money come from?"

Reversing Hunts extremely damaging NI cuts would have been far worse.

Yes I agree on Sunak and the accusations / motivation.

Oh trust me I've had thar thrown on me here by Labour supporters

I mean really.

Reversing would have caused huge loss of consumer confidence and rush for higher pay demands.... plus would have made the WFA debacle look like a storm in a tea cup.

But you re right, it wasn't a Pre Election bribe, as he kept cutting despite terrible polling... it was done to screw up Labour & in that, he was successful.

Sunak approved of these cuts too.

Sunak actually increased NIC when he was Chancellor, but it never happened because he resigned and his successor cancelled the increases!

And your point is? Other than to disprove your theory that the NI cuts were part of a carefully thought out strategy on equalising in work and passive income? Bearing in mind that there was less than two years between Sunak’s resignation as chancellor and Hunt’s NI cuts.

Yet just a year later, he approved of 4% in cuts to NI, completely unfunded.

imho they could never have been reversed.

Taxes, whether we like it or not need to go up or accept crumbling roads, millions stuck on waiting lists and 4 year waits to see your attacker in court.

This is why there should be local rent caps.
Rent increases shouldn't be more than the rate of inflation or current interest rate, if that.

This Buy to Let has been a disaster for many tenants. With some landlords thinking it's the key to printing money.

Sadly, both parties of government have many MP landlords. So, instead of acting and producing decent legislation for tenants to prevent this. They continue to leave loopholes and no market controls.

It is the cost of Housing (buying and renting) that is one of the main causes of inflation.

Easy answer to scrap NIC and raise income tax rates which can be set so that workers aren't hit, but get more taxes out of people with "unearned" income, i.e. buy to letters, investment portfolios, foreign income, pensions, etc. We somehow need to get to where a worker on say £30k pa pays the same taxes as a non worker on £30k p.a. based on investment income and other non working income. That will bring in tens of billions and won't hit workers. Those living on "investment" income have had a few good decades of paying too little tax compared with say the 70s when investment and other "passive" income streams had their own higher tax rates!

Never going to happen despite it being your hobby horse.

One day it may have to happen given the ever worsening public finances and ultimately the IMF may have to decide/dictate how the UK gets out of this mess!

I loved the library van too. So much!

It will never be the policy of any political party because it would be electoral suicide. Look at who can be relied on to go and vote. And the IMF threat which has suddenly become in vogue is an empty one - France’s national debt is 120% of GDP.

Why don’t we just increase taxes by 1-2% for everyone?

Agree with this.

We’ve already had the £70bn tax and burrowing budget, it was meant to be a one off.

Yes, that would be "fair" and proportionate to salary earned.

I’d be fine with a small increase in tax of my salary…

You might be but there’s not much point in saying one off and we won’t tax working people then doing it anyway.

1. It wouldn't be enough,
2. Political suicide for the party enforcing it,
3. Doesn't solve the existing unfairness in the tax system,
4. Within a few years, another 1-2% would be needed.

Remember Gordon Brown increased NIC twice "to save the NHS" - that went well didn't it! Not to mention it was only a tax on workers, not everyone.

Realistically, we'd need to increase income tax by around 5% to clear the annual deficit and start chipping away at the national debt, but it would crash the economy so tax revenues would fall and govt spending would increase, thus making the problem even worse!

What is really stupid is that Reeves and Starmer would probably have won the last GE even if they hadn't made such stupid promises about not increasing taxes! They won because the Tory vote collapsed, not because they were popular themselves, in fact they didn't get much more votes than Corbyn did in 2019! They've stupidly backed themselves into a corner without an escape!

I agree that they should never have made that promise.

Plus, I think they need to break that promise now.

Fin.

Until the next one!