Page 5 | To ask if you were Prime Minister for a year, how would you combat the cost of living?

MzGG · 2025-11-27T21:53:32+00:00

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

MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack · 28/11/2025 07:50

Genevieva · 28/11/2025 07:33

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.

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It isn't "simply maths", and you seeking to reduce it to that won't make it so.

Nobody is talking about making our welfare state "available to the world". We are talking about British citizens being treated equally.

You could put forward an argument that we should make it harder for people to obtain British citizenship if you want, and we could discuss that. But what you are advocating for is two separate tiers of citizenship where some citizens are considered "more British" than others and have different rights accordingly.

That is repugnant in my view. It speaks volumes about who you are and how you see people.

GentleOlive · 28/11/2025 07:51

HopSpringsEternal · 28/11/2025 07:40

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.

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This lie about migrants contributing more needs to be busted. Since Brexit, non European migrants are not contributors and that’s the majority of people who have been coming here. So immigration is costing this country and needs to be cut much deeper.

RedToothBrush · 28/11/2025 07:53

Flat rate tax. No loopholes for anyone. But a guaranteed basic income.

Make a lot of accountants unemployed.

Matronic6 · 28/11/2025 08:03

Close loopholes for corporation so they have to pay fair tax for making millions/billions from the country. A tax on dividends. Tax on empty properties which increases each year properties stay empty. Review business rates on high streets to try encourage growth and develop local high streets.

SENcatsandfish · 28/11/2025 08:12

Landlords rent prices would be more controlled, in line with the rate that housing benefit pays. So that people can privately rent without having to pay loads extra. If the house has extra rooms for example, the landlords may increase the rent but only by a specified amount. This should ease the pressure on social housing as private renting would be affordable.

Prices on uber eats etc, would not be allowed to inflate prices, especially supermarkets.

Robust early intervention of mental health issues, SENd, physical issues, schools, children's services. Rather than waiting until the situation is so dire that when they do help it fails.

Companies wont be able to hike prices during school holidays.

When a legal process is broken by councils, or companies, there is a legal consequence.

Stop sending so much overseas. Fix the NHS education and everything else that is screwed, first. Any money left over in the pot can help charities in our country before sending any extra overseas.

Have a limit so that no one can have over 1 billion £. Anything over 1 billion goes to the government and directly into services.

Tougher immigration and deportation of criminals. They shouldn't sit in our prisons costing the government.

More care and support for children in care, robust mental health support and support after leaving care, including accommodation, support with education and training.

Support and mental health for youth offenders.

More volunteer roles in small communities. Including schemes/apps where people can ask advice about an issue and verified group experts can give advice if they want to.

helpfulperson · 28/11/2025 08:16

Just for those talking about investing more in renewable energy. Currently the UK is around 50% renewable with plans in place for us to be 100% by 2030. This is already happening.

crossedlines · 28/11/2025 08:18

Universal basic income. Everyone should have enough to provide a roof over their head, food on the table and access to childcare for parents who both work. Then people who work would be significantly better off than if they didn’t. They’d have the universal income same as everyone else and their work income on top of that.

the absolute fundamental point is that the difference between working and not working needs to be much bigger. It’s the differential that matters. People need to be incentivised to spend 40 or so hours a week doing something which might be tough/dangerous/boring/high responsibly. At the end of the day, any job is about having to perform to certain standards, fulfil specific duties, rather than having that extra 40 or so hours to use as your own. It’s absolutely no wonder the country’s up shit creek when working people can be tangibly no better off than non working.

Support the minority who are genuinely physically unable to perform any kind of work. Not those who are anxious/ depressed/ just not feeling it…. There are plenty of people who feel like that who turn up for work every day, so it’s ludicrous that some people game the system.

we need to get to restore the social contract: take responsibility as a citizen and you’ll get the rewards from that. At the moment it’s swung too far the other way.

At the end of the day, it’s having agency and choices which motivates most people. If you see that going out to work every day doesn’t get you any better choices, you still can’t afford to buy a house, travel, run a car, buy nice things… why bother?

hamstersarse · 28/11/2025 08:27

I’d burn out tax system to the ground and have a high threshold for paying tax - around £25-28k and then have one single tax band. Ideally 20% but more likely starting at 25-28% while the incentive takes hold. Entrepreneurs would emerge, business would boom and people (everyone) would get richer.

The welfare state would be there for those unable to work, we’d have a proper debate about what constitutes fit for work, and then we’d all get out there and live our lives, secure in the sense that if we got ill, we’d be looked after.

Our energy would be a mix of fossil from our own stores (let gas and oil companies free to drill again - no cost just revenue!) nuclear and the renewables we have at the moment - no more waste on that until prices are significantly lowered and we can afford to look at renewables again,

Dinnerplease · 28/11/2025 08:28

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/

Migration benefits depend on the type of migration - but given low skilled migration routes are now pretty much non existent, current migration does have a net benefit. The benefit is enhanced because the UK hasn't had to educate those people. If you didn't have to educate that doctor or engineer then that's great for us.

Given migration only impacts 1% of the economy either way though, this would be part of my prime-ministerial long term growth strategy.

Overall I think it's economy enhancing to be open to the world and new ideas and attract the brightest and best, and their children, to come here. Small minded, inward looking economies don't grow, at least not without massive state intervention.

The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the UK - Migration Observatory

This briefing gives an overview of research on the impact of immigration on government finances in the UK and explains the main issues related to estimating the fiscal impact of immigration in the UK.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/

HopSpringsEternal · 28/11/2025 08:33

Genevieva · 28/11/2025 07:43

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.

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Well obviously new arrivals with no status aren't allowed to work.And therefore can't pay taxes. Do not think, maybe you should get reduced services as you didn't pay your taxes here?

lljkk · 28/11/2025 08:52

The problem with cutting overseas aid budget is... if we don't help them fix their problems there, then they rationally want to come here to escape the problems there.

And then some people complain about too many immigrants. <shrug>

So many of the suggestions are naive. No benefits to non citizens? So then you'd have legal residents & the few allowed asylum seekers including their children sleeping on the streets and openly begging (their kids off school, too). Suddenly exceptions and carve outs would be magicked up... Just like Trump's Tariffs. Big noise about a headline Policy with a zillion exceptions so effective policy very modest.

FlashyAndShiny · 28/11/2025 09:08

It is blatantly obvious that the only way we can keep inflation under control is by rejoining the EU, which will happen sooner or later anyway.

Worralorra · 28/11/2025 09:09

Freeze taxes and set a rent cap that reduces the smallest rentals to 1/3 of minimum wage take-home in each area.

Monty34 · 28/11/2025 09:13

The population is too large for the size of the country.
We should not need masses of migration into it. I would limit migration to very high level skilled people eg brain surgeon, physicists etc. And not water that down. And allow tourists of course.
I would switch up the Home office mindset to focus less on processing granting visas and more on improvements in managing and monitoring. Quality not quantity.
A new funding model is needed for students and universities.
NHS recruitment needs to change. From our medical schools first before overseas recruitment please. With exceptions for the very very highly skilled.
A training plan to support employers to recruit and train young people into work.
A review of ADHD, how it is diagnosed and how services to support are paid. I would not pay the parents directly.
I would tax billionaires a bit more. They cannot spend their money in their lifetime.
I would tax Amazon and their ilk appropriately.
The construction trade should train and recruit people presently here. And build more social housing. Way more social housing.
I would begin to curtail tax credits. They have changed how the world of work operates and our relationship between employer and employee but not for the better.
I would make work places more age friendly, more disabled friendly, by having specialist advisers and programmes to support employers recruiting older and or disabled people.
I would make energy companies and providers reduce their profits.
I would dispose of useless regulators and take ownership and responsibility for the application of policies. Not offload them to 'regulators'.
As a start....

ElectoralControversy · 28/11/2025 09:13

222days · 28/11/2025 03:57

Quite a lot needs to change for our economy to be made sustainable and productivity to increase, which is the only way to raise living standards sustainably rather than it just be a case of dividing up the remaining crumbs between warring factions. Producivity increases are the only way for living standards to rise. Redistributing money and discouraging investment further by taxing it even more, as they have just done for the second year in a row. will just strangle growth further and accelerate the doom loop.

Fundamentally, it requires a huge improvement in the efficiency of spending, a coherent industrial and trade policy, investment in infrastructure and education and a very large redirecting of public spending from the old to the young. Over 65s are 15% of the population yet consume over 50% of public spending. This is why taxes are going through the roof, and why there has been chronic underinvestment in the parts of our economy that will actually generate improved productivity, rising living standards and growth and some hope for the future of the cost of living relative to salaries going down. The longer this is not done, the worse the effect will be.

A good start would be to:

means test the state pension with a gradual taper rate like in Australia, so that it reaches zero when the PLSA income level for a moderate retirement for an individual/ couple is met (or assets sufficient to generate this income). This would create absolutely zero poverty because it is set at a level which allows for foreign holidays, running a car, eating out regularly, etc: the only impact would be that those pensioners who don’t need the state pension and are currently spending it on extra luxuries no longer receive it/ all of it. This would save £80-90bn per year - these completely unnecessary welfare payments to wealthy pensioners are by far the most wasteful part of public spending and it needs to stop. The quid pro quo can be no further raises in state retirement age. There is no rational argument for the status quo. The current generation of retirees are - on average - extracting £200k per person more in welfare and state services than they paid in tax over their lifetimes, in real terms. This is not sustainable and cannot continue. They didn’t pay sufficient tax to fund their demands on the current working aged population and neither did they provide anything like what they are demanding for their own parents and grandparents. It’s crippling our economy. Ceasing these payments to people who do not need them at all would create no poverty whatsoever, just upset a lot of pensioners who continue to claim that they have “paid for their pension” and that it “isn’t welfare” when all they have done is pay the tax required so that they aren’t breaking the law and go to prison and it’s been clear ever since the National Insurance Act 1948 that this is a welfare payments and - just like all welfare payments - the eligibility criteria and amount is subject to change (the PLSA levels are uprated with inflation every year and currently £31,700 for an individual or £43,900 for a couple after tax and housing costs - so far exceed the income of the vast majority of working-aged people who are paying NI, housing costs, childcare and have nowhere near this amount left as disposable income, so no pensioner would be left in poverty by removing their state pension at this level. When you consider that the recently-proposed cuts to disability benefit aimed to save £5bn per year and this measure would save £80-90bn per year, you can understand the scale of the problem and that it is pension welfare that is one of the reasons why the UK’s infrastructure and education system and all productive investment is falling apart. This ponzi scheme cannot continue and simply won’t, because it can’t, but the longer it goes on the more damage it will do and the harder it will be for the UK to recover, all so that working-aged people can fund luxuries and extra holidays for wealthy pensioners who are perfectly capable of supporting themselves, because politicians are scared to upset them. They need to get over this and do it - it should have been done decades ago). These pensioners funded nothing like this for their own parents or grandparents, and as a cohort paid nowhere near enough to fund it for themselves. They had decades where the collapse of this ponzi scheme was foreseen as an inevitability yet continued to vote for politicians who did nothing about it and demanded no change, and now state that it would be “unfair” to change it for those already retired. Ridiculous. It has to be changed and somebody needs to get a grip and tell them it is being changed, with immediate effect.
The above measure would enable significant investment in productive parts of the economy that have been starved of cash in which investment is essential to generate growth: education and infrastructure in particular. We need a lower proportion of people going to university and far more technical colleges with apprenticeships set up in conjunction with businesses leading to respected and useful vocational qualifications that lead directly into employment with the training employer, more similar to the German model. We also need to increase funding for schools by 50% to ensure smaller class sizes and a wider range of schools to suit different needs - some more academic in focus like the old grammar schools and some more focused on arts or sports or practical and technical skills. Trying to pretend all children are identical is ridiculous and we need to abandon the failed model of forcing almost all children into one-size-fits-all mainstream education which serves nobody well. Fund SEND education properly and put a proper regulator in place for education which will impose fines and sanctions and strip qualifications from people or even impose prison sentences when the law is broken, as is the case in every other sector (law, medicine, finance) rather than individual parents being expected to enforce the law. In the long run, the failure of education and enabling every child to reach their potential is going to cost us orders of magnitude more in terms of welfare, lower growth, higher justice and healthcare costs, etc, so underfunding education is economic insanity.
All responsibility for the provision of education and social care should also be taken back within the remit of the relevant central Government departments so that there is accountability, even if they delegate implementation tasks to Local Authorities. The recently mooted plans to redistribute Council tax across the country just add another layer of bureaucracy to achieve the same effective central funding outcome but with no accountability allowing central Government to blame Councils for the failures when they are underfunded and not capable anyway of administering these systems competently and this has led to a huge squandering of resources on ineffective systems designed more to try to circumvent their statutory responsibilities than actually implement the required services. Social care whether in the home or out of the home should be treated equally in terms of funding. General taxation can rise slightly to fund this and Council tax be significantly lowered with Local Authorities responsible only for local services such as waste collection, leisure centres, road maintenance, libraries etc.
The savings from point 1) also would enable us to remove the op-out for auto-enrolment and significantly increase the level of mandatory contributions for both employees and employers whilst making tax cuts to make this fiscally neutral and ensure that there is a stable pensions system in place for the future. A similar mandatory scheme should be introduced for the self-employed unless they can demonstrate sufficient levels of independent assets to fund their own retirement entirely independently. Meanwhile the Government should commit - as independent report after independent report into the pensions industry in the UK has advised them for years now - NOT to make any further changes to the rules around withdrawals, tax relief, etc because this is undermining any faith in people trusting the system sufficiently to invest their money into it, knowing rules might be changed in the future.
Abandon the failed NHS model and emulate one of the far superior European models like those in France or Germany which have been shown to deliver far better patient outcomes and value for money. People would get treated in a timely manner, healthcare would vastly improve. Treatment would be cheaper if it happened earlier and so the money would be spent more efficiently and achieve much better outcomes without even raising the overall budget. There is a reason why no other country in the world has emulated the NHS system and all of the countries that have better health outcomes do not use a system like ours. Every time this is proposed ridiculous people try to pretend that changing it would mean we were moving to a US model which - again - nobody else in the world has copied for very good reasons. There are very good models between these two extremes that actually work and won’t bankrupt the country.
Rejoin the single market and customs union as quickly as possible and implement a coherent industrial strategy and trade policy, focusing on Government support for start-ups in key high-productivity sectors where the UK has an existing competitive advantage and knowledge base (tech, pharmaceuticals, engineering, the arts, finance and professional services, defence, life sciences etc) linking these up with grants, research from our best universities, knowledge clusters and business support networks including a new Government export assistance service for small businesses to help them overcome the costs of legal hurdles and compliance documentation with templates/ paperwork assistance etc.
A huge investment in our failing infrastructure (water, internet, road, rail, housing - but with acceptable standards for homebuilding unlike now) and plans for food security, water security, energy security, climate change protection (e.g. flood defences). We currently have some of the very highest energy prices in the entire world. This is hugely harming economic growth. The energy pricing model is completely insane, where all units consumed are priced based on the most expensive energy units in the national mix at a given time. This is entirely artificial and perfectly possible for Government to change instantly. Meanwhile we need to invest far more heavily in Nuclear alongside renewables to provide reliable baseload for the future (thanks Nick Clegg for declaring 15 years ago that it wasn’t worth bothering because it wouldn’t be online for 15 years, when at the time the UK could borrow at negative interest rates, i.e. being paid to borrow the money to build our infrastructure). The economic illiteracy has gone on for a long, long time. While day to day public spending needed to be cut after the financial crisis, we should have borrowed HUGE amounts to invest in infrastructure because we could have done so at a profit before even having build anything!). Energy prices are crippling our businesses and making them uncompetitive. Importing a large amount of essentials commodities like energy makes us extremely reliant on FDI and imports inflation. Markets will be favourable to a coherent long-term investment plan in such areas because of their impact on long-term productivity and growth rate therefore this would not negatively impact the UK credit rating. This would also generate more highly skilled jobs and demand for the apprenticeships per point 2).
Stop selling indexed links gilts! Most comparable European countries have a tiny amount of their debt issued on an index-linked basis and are therefore paying much lower interest than us on similar debt levels. This was gross economic mismanagement.
Fix the ridiculous UK tax system which is harming productivity. These points are not in priority order and frankly this one should be done immediately because the effect would be almost instantaneous unlike some other items on the list and it is entirely within Government control to fix. Anomalies and perverse incentives little the system at every level. All taxes and welfare should be levied on a household unit basis, as in pretty much every other developed country. Couples could choose to opt out and be separate “household units” splitting their household tax allowances/ thresholds between them equally if they wish to maintain separate finances. Obviously those in HMOs or adult children living with parents would be separate “household units”. This is how the system operates in all sensible countries of which I am aware. Then two households with the same household income will be taxed the same amount regardless of whether they’re a single parent or couple or how the earnings are split between the adults. This is a matter of basic fairness. Income tax does need to rise but this needs to be through the basic rate (due to sheer mathematics). This should be done transparently by simply changing the rate. Fiscal drag is economically damaging and a commitment should be made to uprate all tax thresholds annually with inflation.
As well as the above, the cliff-edges in the tax system need to be removed. Child benefit, childcare funding and the personal allowance should be made universal again, and the universal credit taper rate reduced significantly because there is robust independent economic evidence demonstrating that this would generate more economic growth, reduce long-term welfare dependency and raise tax revenues and economic participation rates significantly. This would also reduce the number of people cutting their hours/ retiring early/ emigrating and therefore reduce skills shortages and the need for immigration. Rationalise the tax system so that pensioners pay NI given they are by far the highest users of welfare and healthcare which it was supposedly meant to fund (obviously we all know it isn’t hypothecated and does no such thing anyway, but there’s no reason they should be exempt). Adjust tax rates to reduce the discrepancy between the level of tax on earned income and investment income (some is justified to generate investment and risk taking, but the current level is too extreme with employees being taxed far too heavily proportionately). There’s absolutely no excuse for this Government or the last one not to have taken the measures in points 10) and 9) to fix the tax system given the very clear evidence of the economic harm that the current system is causing, suppressing growth and productivity. And certainly no excuse to be telling us they need to make “tough decisions” and make cuts/ raise taxes without taking these measures first. Restore the social contract: the quickest way to undermine public services entirely is to exclude those who are actually paying for them from using them. They will be paying their share AND for many others to access the same and in most European countries that is accepted and it works. If you start excluding higher earners from childcare funding etc you create perverse incentives in the tax system, discourage work from our most productive people, and condemn those public services to perpetual decline and cuts and well as creating further social division. Not helpful of course that the idiots in charge currently, instead of using this budget to remove the cliff edges strangling growth, decided to add more. 🤦🏻‍♀️ It’s hard to conprehend this level of stupidity.
Link up Government IT systems properly so that healthcare records, HMRC records, DWP records, CMS records are all linked together. Ask the Estonians if we can buy their integrated IT system from them given our Governments are so terrible at IT projects. This will enable much easier identification of fraud and tax evasion. Digital ID cards should be required and added to traders’ invoices so that their transactions are logged and they cannot do “cash work” and under-declare and make it an offence to pay for work over a de minimis value without this digital ID number to stamp out black market. These ID cards can also be used to reduce black market working generally. There is a huge amount of tax evasion going on. Implement a system like those in other countries where absent parents who don’t pay something resembling 50% of the cost of housing and raising their children (not the laughable current CMS rates) have their driving licences and passports confiscated and if they still don’t pay then they will be sent to prison i.e. treating these debts with the same severity as money owed to HMRC.
All benefits other than disability benefits should be contributory like in most European countries, so that they resemble the insurance-based system that they were intended to be. This would enable them to be set at a level where they are a percentage of previous salary, again in line with most European countries, so that they do actually provide a genuine safety net for all sufficient to cover their baked-in existing living costs which is important for the social contract (and those with higher costs will have been paying proportionately more tax to fund this while working). This will also prevent people claiming unemployment benefits as a “career” without ever working at all (unless severely disabled). Benefits like the child element of UC should be replaced by an additional tax allowance based on the number of children (again, a model that’s worked well in other countries for decades) because this encourages work rather than disincentivising it, while still recognising the additional costs involved in raising children.
Implement something akin to the EU Directive on Tax Transparency which Brexit was largely designed to avoid being implemented in the UK, requiring publication of the beneficial ownership of all accounts held in UK offshore tax haven territories. Reform rules around transfer pricing which enable large companies to move profits abroad and transfer costs into countries where revenue is generated to eliminate their profits. Reform the rules around dividend distribution linking them to the requirement to provide disclosures on long-term viability so that a company cannot make distributions unless it can demonstrate sufficient cash is being kept in the business to meet long-term investment requirements (e.g. water companies needing to invest in infrastructure as population changes/ upgrades are required).

These would be obvious first steps for a Government genuinely wanting to generate growth and rising living standards. None of it is rocket science. And none of it, sadly, is what the Government is doing, or any other political party is proposing either.

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I agree with a lot of this though I would have a less authoritarian approach to id cards/ cash working etv

Noone would ever vote for it though. Can you imagine trying to sell means-testing the state pension 😬

It would be fun to implement your 13 though - a lot of very rich people invested a lot of money convincing the plebs to vote Brexit so they didn't have to reveal their dodgy financial dealings. Mega lolz if they had to anyway...but the UK will never implement legislation like that🫤

HelenaWaiting · 28/11/2025 09:14

222days · 28/11/2025 05:11

I did no such thing. I assume you own a dictionary? Perhaps look up the word “metaphor”.

Capisce? 🤣🙄 This isn’t an episode of The Sopranos.

The third person singular in English (“understand”) is just as easy to… understand. I understand perfectly well thank you. If your claim that you earn a moderate professional salary is true (which I doubt given the language you used in the post I responded to, let alone the subsequent ones) then I’m not sure why you think that gives you the authority to tell other people what they can or cannot say about the objective fact that the UK is levying taxes on earners in this bracket (not the wealthy) which are amongst the highest taxes for that income level in the world, while significantly undertaxing those on median/ low incomes in comparison to our comparator countries in Europe which have the level of services that the UK public seems to expect to be funded, without the vast majority of them paying a sufficient amount to make it possible for the country to fund this.

And you can quit trying to call other people “patronising” when you’re attempting to patronise other people, as well as attempting to misrepresent what they have stated with your ridiculous comment about the dog metaphor. It’s hardly like I made up the saying. Perhaps given your ridiculous “capisce” comment you’re actually Italian and therefore not familiar with English idioms. That is the only excuse I could think of for such an obviously false and absurd accusation that I was “calling people dogs”.

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I am actually Italian. I'm from Aosta. So please do feel free to point out the glaring grammatical errors that led you to conclude that I can't possibly be sufficiently qualified to command a six figure salary. I have a biology degree, a medical degree and a DPhil. I should point out at this juncture that I have been in the UK quite long enough to understand the vernacular.

You assumed, quite wrongly, that because I made a comment slighting those on high salaries (£100000 is high, not "moderate") I must be receiving benefits; as if it is completely inconceivable that I might be both extremely comfortable and aware that a decent salary conveys a certain privilege about which one should be mindful. Instead of taking my comment at face value you made certain assumptions about me, my likely income and my lifestyle. That is abundantly clear so you can stick your "metaphor" where the sun doesn't shine.

HelenaWaiting · 28/11/2025 09:15

HelenaWaiting · 28/11/2025 09:14

I am actually Italian. I'm from Aosta. So please do feel free to point out the glaring grammatical errors that led you to conclude that I can't possibly be sufficiently qualified to command a six figure salary. I have a biology degree, a medical degree and a DPhil. I should point out at this juncture that I have been in the UK quite long enough to understand the vernacular.

You assumed, quite wrongly, that because I made a comment slighting those on high salaries (£100000 is high, not "moderate") I must be receiving benefits; as if it is completely inconceivable that I might be both extremely comfortable and aware that a decent salary conveys a certain privilege about which one should be mindful. Instead of taking my comment at face value you made certain assumptions about me, my likely income and my lifestyle. That is abundantly clear so you can stick your "metaphor" where the sun doesn't shine.

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Oops! I left a comma out in that last sentence. I should insist on a pay cut.

Bushmillsbabe · 28/11/2025 09:23

peoplegetreadyforthetrain · 27/11/2025 22:25

Find a cost neutral way to build more social housing for working people on low incomes

Surely if it were that straightforward they’d have done it ages ago?!

I meant cost neutral over a certain time period - such as it pays for itself over for example 10 years. This may require rents which are a bit higher than standard social housing rents, but a bit lower than market rents, which would still be attractive due to the long term tenancy. Tenants required to provide references from previous landlords and employers as to security of job and that they were a good tenant - a chunk of the cost of social housing is non payment of rent and cost of evictions, and cost of repairs above normal wear and tear. It changing the approach to put the responsibility on the tenant to show they will be responsible, rather than the responsibility on to housing to keep repairing neglectful or intentional damage. My friend works for a HA and the state she sees properties turned into is shocking.

Monty34 · 28/11/2025 09:28

Agree, means testing the State pension would be political suicide. And morally wrong. It has been sold to people for years that they pay in. And before anyone tells me they don't, that is what it has been sold as. You can even 'buy more years'. And get your forecast.
And thresholds get lowered don't you know. What you might consider the right threshold now, would be lowered and lowered and lowered over time. Until only those on pension credit would get a State pension....
Not a good idea.

Girasoli · 28/11/2025 09:30

I'd rejoin the EEA (if they'd let us in). I would rather be in a trading block with Europe than rely on the US.

NamelessNancy · 28/11/2025 09:30

Bus passes for under 25s. Make it easier for them to access work/training.

crossedlines · 28/11/2025 09:30

I completely agree with @Monty34’s point about tax credits changing the relationship between employer and employee.

I remember when they were first introduced, a couple of people within my social circle saying they wouldn’t work full time now, they’d do 16 hours and as little as possible over that, and then get topped up with tax credits. Prior to tax credits, if you weren’t bringing in enough money you took on extra hours, a second job (been there, done that in the era when mortgage interest rates when shooting up, I took on weekend shift work in addition to a full time professional role) Tax credits were the real start of people gaming the system and calculating the minimum they could work for the maximum gain.

im not proposing that it should be normal for people in full time work to have to do evenings and weekends too just to make ends meet - frankly it was bloody awful during those years. But there has to be a way of restoring the relationship between the amount of work done and the tangible reward. I’m emphasising tangible because at the end of the day, what motivates people is the ‘extra’ money they have left in their pocket after essentials. That’s what gives people agency and choices. Whether they use that to get a better home, to travel, to eat out more, have another child…. It’s about choice. When someone is working their arse off and has no greater (and in some cases actually lesser) choices over those things than someone who doesn’t work, or who works the minimum they need to in order to claim benefits, then you’ve got a BIG problem. As evidenced by the state of the U.K.

LizzieW1969 · 28/11/2025 09:40

Genevieva · 28/11/2025 00:11

I agree that immigrants who naturalise as British citizens (like your Dad) should be able to access the NHS, but not welfare. It’s. Privilege to have the opportunity to live in another country. Immigrants should, like your Dad, expect to contribute not take. If they can’t afford to live in the country they have moved to, they should go home. But for the initial 4 or 5 years that an immigrant is here on a visa they should have comprehensive health insurance.

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What about my DB? He’s lived in this country almost all his life, but because our parents happened to be working in Africa at the time, he was born there. So because of this he shouldn’t be entitled to benefits (he’s very disabled and unable to work) but my DSis and I would be because we happen to have been born in this country. (For context, our DM is fully British whereas our F was Czech.)

Rather arbitrary, don’t you think? Or would you say that my DB is fine to claim benefits because he happens to be white? You wouldn’t have a clue about him after all unless he told you his life story.

Bollindger · 28/11/2025 09:44

I would put car tax onto fuel.
Everyone then would pay, get rid of that section of the the department, then the half a million plus untaxed cars would not be able to avoid paying.
Anyone who has a car they only use a few miles a year would gain, and business could claim the tax back if need be.
You then set up a system where people can report cars, with a bounty of £50 a car. You keep the SORN.
Can you imagine the report that car app.
There are 5 million cars with no MOT. It would make a great side hustle for a few years.

SantiagoShaming · 28/11/2025 09:50

Massive NHS reform that would involve a hybrid insurance model. We’ve clung on too long as it is, it’s not workable in the modern world.

Housing reform, building more missing middle housing and changing both building regs and tenancy laws. Regulating who can buy property in the UK, how many STRs we have and putting a time limit on vacant property.