We don't want the government to lurch to the left

[Bargepole45]

I am absolutely astounded that Labour think it's democratic to decide that they can lurch to the left despite being elected with a very clear promise to not tax and spend. I believe this is absolutely not what the general public want and I am really worried that the economy isn't going to survive this and we will end up with an IMF bailout that will lead to very painful spending cuts for our most vulnerable.

Please vote:
YABU :I want Labour to lurch to the left in order to increase taxation and spending
YANBU: I don't want Labour to lurch to the left and would be against further tax and spending rises

@NanFlandersyou’ll find the same in The Guardian if you prefer that one, the BoE statement was widely reported.

Let me guess, you are a huge net beneficiary of the state?

No, I’ve paid tax for 40 years.

Are you and your household net contributors or beneficiaries?

The options - if you want to increase spending are, as ever:

Cut spending elsewhere
Raise raxes
Borrow more
Grow the economy

The bottom two aren’t going to happen. Who are you going to tax? Because anyone over £50k is already being hammered and aren’t going to pay more to fund a benefits bill they don’t benefit from. There is no magic money tree here. It does not exist. There are no handy billionaires siphoning off millions.

If markets say my employer is fucked then I'm out of a job. It doesn't really matter what I say. Country is subject to the same discipline.

You must be living in Dreamland if you think anything different. It's literally the economics of Mugabe and Zimbabwe if you think you can print money and ignore bond markets.

Who is mad enough to lend money to a country when they know it's value will go down?

Who invests money on behalf of pensioners in a country that prints money and makes that investment worth less?

Can I take your pension and invest it in something that will lose 5% of it's value a year please? That seems to be your policy.

I don't think that's any of your business and it doesn't make the posters comments any less worthy of being taken seriously either way.

I voted Labour with the expectation that Kier Starmer would be PM. I wasn’t expecting his back benchers to stab him in the back at the first opportunity. And I definitely wouldn’t have voted Labour with Angela Rayner as leader. So no, I am not happy at the idea of a different leader.

Turkeys generally don't vote for Christmas.

Same.

Everyone wants improvement but not to have to pay for it.

Jeremy Corbyn was incredibly popular if you remember! Before the antisemitism nonsense

wtf?

Net contributors. Is that OK? Worked all our lives.

Gestapo or what.

Me too. The higher rate of tax is already similar to Scandinavia. It’s the lower waged that are paying far, far less than in Scandinavia. Are you going to tell them or am I?

It absolutely makes a difference.

So you are basically saying I don't pay my way and expect higher earners to subsidise me.

The top 25% of earners are on course to contribute 75% of income tax! Isnt that enough?

In Europe lower earners pay a lot more tax. In Belgium the 40% band kicks in at 2000 euros. Find me a country in Western Europe where lower earners pay less tax than in the UK?

The tax burden is the highest in 70 odd years so some people are paying for it. The demands for more keep going up though, especially on here. And it’s usually someone else paying up anyway to increase the state.

In a way let the left of Labour go for it, see how it pans out. We can see how higher taxes work out and people can decide.

It's not turkeys voting for Christmas. There are plenty of people who are happy to contribute more because they think the benefits are worth it.

Which is why I said I'd close loopholes first. Anyone PAYE is an easy target.

I'm a net contributor. I would pay more taxes. And to those that said we're welcome to - I'm already contributing to charities that fill the gap that the state should support

I certainly wouldn’t want any more lurching to the left and the thought of Raynor and the likes being PM fills me with absolute horror. We can’t run a country on bitterness and hate

But let’s not ignore OP that the current Labour Government have done many things that have taken away our rights
Planning- calling in planning applications when it looks like public opinion is against them in order to rush them through
Organisations- naming PA a terrorist organisation when it does not come within those parameters
Prison- imprisoning without bail and before trial for long periods of time
Free speech- Labour paused and then significantly changed the Higher Education Act on free speech

So what are Labour really up to anyway.
Right, Left, Centre. They are currently no more than headless chickens
the hens of which have penises

In Europe lower earners pay a lot more tax. In Belgium the 40% band kicks in at 2000 euros. Find me a country in Western Europe where lower earners pay less tax than in the UK?

This is true that lower and middle earners pay less tax vs other European countries but the issue is housing costs.

You can read the original Bank of England report that this is presumably based on here: Monetary Policy Report – February 2026 (PDF. It's a lot more nuanced that the Mail's This is Money implies. Essentially it says that we are subject to the global instability i referenced earlier, but inflation is expected to fall back towards 2%. There was a narrow vote on cutting the interest rate, but they eventually went for keeping monetary policy tight enough to ensure inflation returns to target sustainable, not prematurely.

Our benefits are not linked to how much tax you pay which is another element different in many European countries and we don’t pay enough tax for our NHS model.

We have an ageing population which is a huge part of the problem.

I know - I’m one of them. My projected tax for next year is eye watering, a real significant increase.

Where else people think the money is going to come from otherwise is beyond me, and cutting already struggling services isn’t the answer.

People talk about “not paying it” like they’re only optionally paying tax to begin with. I always laugh at the petulant “I’m not paying more!” people…. you are.

If you don’t like it, you can either choose to earn less or choose to leave. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

The tax burden is the highest in 70 odd years so some people are paying for it

Are the Tories not responsible for some
of this burden? They froze the income tax bands.

We cannot cut public services anymore. At some point we need a fair tax system to give us all the services we need. I don’t bother with the NHS for so many things now and choose to go private, just small stuff but I know the service can’t cope. You end up paying one way or another so I don’t mind tax if it’s enough across everyone to get services up. I’m a higher tax payer in Scotland so already higher than most on here probably