To ask if you were Prime Minister for a year, how would you combat the cost of living?

[MzGG]

To ask if you were Chancellor of the Exchequer, how would you combat the cost of living?

Make purchasing flats / apartments more desirable with capped fees / lengthy leaseholds. Build more social housing flats.

Winter fuel allowance needs to have a criteria. My father has a pension of £2.5k a month and a bank account earning over £700 a month in interest. Fortunately he donates his allowance to local charities.

I'd immediately halt all public enquiries.
They are costing millions and run for years and achieve very little.
The money already spent on Grenfell enquiry would have paid compensation to the victims and families who lost people, plus built a considerable amount of social housing to re-home people in.
But so far it's achieved nothing.
The COVID enquiry...now 5 yes post the start of the pandemic and it seems completely focused on deciphering individuals WhatsApp messages...that's not going to help us in the event of another pandemic.

Rejoin the EU, in whichever form they’ll have us.

So build houses rather than repair existing ones? You want to leave thousands of properties to rot whilst culling green space that earns its own living? What about disease and so on? I don’t understand

They would have done if she’d been given time. She fell over as nothing got leaked or discussed in advance so nobody had processed her proposals. Most don’t like surprises

100% agree. It’s the current answer to everything and doesn’t seem to achieve very much despite ££ spent

I would make it harder for businesses that work in the uk to avoid tax. Ditto million/billionaires Cap energy prices. Charge people who don’t have uk status for access to uk healthcare. Cap housing prices at an affordable rate. Cap pricing on healthier food options. Tighten up immigration (although honestly I don’t know how.) increase minimum wage. Rehaul the pension system. Pay carers a fair wage.

And literally kill 1000’s of people 🙄

All of these are brilliant ideas

Immigrants are net contributers- they tend to be younger,, skilled, earning (often well) and use minimal services by dint of being younger and healthier. We also need them to have a functional health system and to be able to build stuff. The hostile environment has helped seize the economy up. Heavy immigration improves the economy. So in fantasy PM land, one of the things I'd do would be to lift more immigration restrictions.

Build modern apartment blocks
With a variety of living options but concentrate on single adult households bit like student accommodation.

increase fuel duty and EV PPM - but keep it lower for essential freight.

Put a charge on road tax for bigger, heavier, more polluting personal vehicles and invest in public transport. Particularly buses and give them priority within the traffic and bus drivers a very decent wage.

Tax the rich.

The first thing I'd want to do is increase child maintenance and make it a criminal offence not to pay it. The collection service would be opt out so would be automatic unless the person in receipt chooses otherwise.

The immigrants we had while we were in the EU were net contributors on average. They are not now.

The most sensible fiscal policy might be to state that from now on those who voted for Brexit will pay for it. Didn’t they all keep telling us they didn’t care about the fact it would make everyone poorer?

It seems that by “everyone” they meant “someone else”.

Latest economic analyses state that it has reduced UK GDP by 7-8%. That’s far more in terms of lost tax revenue than all of Reeves’ tax increases this year and last year put together.

Time for a new “Brexit tax”. Those who voted for it should put their money where their (loud) mouthes are:

UK GDP is £2.9trn. Taking the lower 7% figure these people’s decision has cost the country £203bn per year.

Total UK tax revenue is £1.1trn per year. 7% of this is £77bn of lost tax revenue per year.

So, we should levy a new “Brexit tax” of £203bn per year, £77bn of which goes to the treasury to plug the gap in tax revenues that these Brexit voters have caused, and the remaining £126bn to be split equally among all UK residents who did not vote for Brexit, to compensate them a little for what these Brexit voters have done to the UK economy and living standards.

Since it was an anonymous vote and these people were so sure that their unicorns were real I presume the unicorns must finally have arrived through the post now (despite large self-inflicted customs delays, 9 years should be sufficient to get them delivered) so I’m sure the Brexit voters will all still be proud of themselves and come forward riding their unicorns to admit proudly and publicly that they voted for Brexit and sign up to pay their share of the new tax. The £203bn tax charge will be split equally between however many proud Brexit voters sign up to admit to voting for imposing this cost on the country which they and only they should rightly pay because they will, of course, acknowledge that they should be the ones to recompense everyone else for what they’ve imposed the rest of us, if they have any decency at all (ha!).

In the “unexpected” event of only Farage and a couple of his mates coming forward and being willing to declare publicly that they voted for the lunacy once it becomes clear that they themselves will have to pay the cost of it - rather than just declaring it would “be worth it and they don’t care if it makes us poorer” but assuming others will pick up the tab for their folly - then we can safely assume that there is no public mandate to maintain the lunacy and we can rejoin the single market and customs union as soon as possible to reverse the worst of the madness. With choices come responsibility and if they refuse to take responsibility like adults and bear the consequences of what they did then their opinions should be irrelevant to policy making.

This is why taxation and representation need to be linked for democracy to function. If people can make decisions without consequences then obviously everything will get trashed, like having an out of control toddler on the loose.

Time for them to pay up for the damage they’ve caused and take responsibility, or shut the hell up for good while other people with a basic grasp of economics start to repair the damage they’ve caused.

Wealth tax for billionaires to address massive income inequality which is driving the cost of living issues for everyone else.

What about substantiaI, unfunded tax cuts?
The subsequent economic growth would pay for the cuts.

And every home with a cat to get free milk.

Every adolscent to be given a degree, of their choice, on their 18th birthay to save them the £9,500 annual unviversity fee and be availabe for work sooner.

Rejoin the EU
Scrap the triple lock
Invest more in nuclear
Increase regulation on PE investment into sectors essential for the functioning of the country, from nurseries to care homes.

It’s simply maths. A country can’t have a sustainable welfare state if it makes it available to the world. If not by being born a citizen, you need another mechanism to restrict its availability. That might mean extending the number of years it takes to become a citizen or increasing the number of eligibility criteria (and gain eligibility). If you don’t, your welfare bill rises too high and puts too much pressure on taxpayers. This in turn causes downward pressure on economic growth, which is what is happening at the moment.

The Government should get together with the big Supermarkets to justify any food price rises. These supermarkets have been on a massive piss take and raking in huge profits and blaming the cost of living crisis .

The price of certain essential foods including meat, fish, fruit and veg should be pegged and not rise and be government controlled.

And no subsidies from the Government

Please stop blaming Brexit and other spurious factors. when it is sheer supermarket greed

You realise migrants to the UK contribute more to the economy than they take from public services than people born here. Even adjusting for age.
At what point do they have to "go home". If like that, my dad, they came over at twenty one. If they have a period of unemployment at 62 do they have to "go home". What about me and my siblings, are we okay? Because we just happened to be born here.
Would the state look after us if both our parents are from abroad?
What about British born people that never worked. Should they get welfare? Why should they? Bring back the workhouses I say.

That used to be the case and that’s how it should be. I’ve worked overseas, paid my taxes and come home. I’d never be a burden on my host nation. Figures from more recent immigration are quite different. They show a very small proportion of new immigrants paying more taxes than they receive in benefits.

Order an audit of all the big companies who have rocketed their prices for every day products. Where the price increases are not proportional to increase in costs, the should be forced to reduce prices. Big companies have made huge profits still while people are suffering.

💯

Cut benefits for those who take no responsibility for managing the number the number of children they have. And for those who think the normal rough and tumble of life is a mental health issue.