To think Labour is not the party of the working people.

[pinkpalmleaves]

I voted for Labour as I believed their election pledge of being a party for the working people but genuinely I can’t think of one thing, since they’ve been in power, that they’ve done to help me (a single working mother on around £42k a year)! I get zero help from UC, these mystical breakfast clubs don’t exist, people aren’t employing people due to their ridiculous NI implications, they aren’t building affordable housing, energy prices are insanely high and all they talk about is grants (which won’t affect me as I live in a flat)! Genuinely I can’t think of one thing that they’ve done to help working people in the middle. Why are Labour sticking their heads in the sand? Why do they refuse to help the squeezed working class? They are stopping this economy from thriving - as
nobody can afford to spend anything extra (treats, holidays, meals out etc etc)!

You’re taxed 45% on some of your income. There is no family rate. You may wish to consider that when I started work the basic rate of income tax was 33% with 9% NI on top - that’s the rate higher tax payers now pay.

I admit that they don't do A&E.

Private insurance excels at acute, time-sensitive issues like cancer and cardiac events.

CQC ratings (2025 data): Independent (private) hospitals: 82.3% rated "Good" (only 9.5% "Requires Improvement"). NHS hospitals: just 47.3% "Good" (41% "Requires Improvement"). Independent providers scored 0.205 higher on average across the board.

Patient satisfaction: Private hospitals routinely hit 95%+. NHS inpatient/outpatient satisfaction hovers at ~37%, with record-low overall NHS approval (26% "satisfied with how it runs" in 2025).

They often pass complicated stuff to the NHS too, sometimes last minute.

At yet our family in the ME pay 0% income tax. And it's an effective 60% tax rate at the top.

Your family in the ME get no public services, there’s no safety net and they’re living in a dangerous tinderbox. I guess some people will do anything for more money. You said you pay 45% tax so are we now moving the goalposts?

Here we pay high taxes and get shitty public services. In the ME no tax, you have to pay for things out of pocket but the value delivered is a lot better.

Even so why can't we have lower income tax rates? At a push maybe the highest band can be 25%?

Who wants to pay 45% of their income over an amount? Basically working hard the year for free.

Because only a few people with the same mindset as you would vote for it. Most of us value a safety net for when we’re ill or old, we want a well educated population and we’re grown up enough to understand those things have to be paid for.

People can save up privately for a pension when they are old. You can have health insurance.

Education can be handled in a low tax high growth economy. Educational standards here are pretty poor btw.

I can assure they are, have you been to Paris or Rome recently.

lol. Is that how you measure economy? By couple of city visits? 😂😂😂

UK is weaker than best EEA economies on productivity, investment, growth and inflation

Are they loving current war with Iran then?

ME has 0% taxes in order to attract people to live in a region which was originally politically unstable (people just forgot about it, until this year) and doesn’t offer perks like passport (because you can’t get one) or culture or other reasons people might be moving for to Europe.

their economy is propped up by their oil and sovereign wealth funds (they are like a startup that burns money to attract customers); so they can afford 0% rate for individuals. No one would live there otherwise

what is the point comparing them with
the UK?

I’d love to see a flat tax rate of say 33% on everyone. The fact that lots of people pay no income tax is appalling

So you'd get rid of the tax threshold?

Yep

So no starting threshold? Tax every single penny people earn? Wages would have to go up, then. People would not be able to live.

Inflation would go through the ceiling.

You should be well aware i was replying to poster that wanted support for childcare/energy, regardless of income.

Some of the universality of the welfare state is madness, i believe Truss handed out over £150 billion in energy support .... for everyone, from the billionaire to the single parent on UC.

Yet posters claim Labour are the party of benefits.... Reeves is the one sensibly means testing any energy support.

Another is Triple lock and free prescriptions for everyone over 60... yet at the same time, people cannot get a dentist, wait 24hrs in AE... can't get SENs support....

Most of them are going about their lives as normal as they can. Going out, going to the office. There's so much culture there in the ME. I got to go to one their cultural events a few months ago. We had so much fun.

There are obviously cultural events for expats but noone is moving to ME FOR culture. People move solely because of taxes

somehow other countries manage

You paid lower VAT
You paid lower Council tax (rates)
You paid lower fuel duty, lower tobacco/alcohol duties
You didn't pay insurance premium tax
You paid lower stamp duty
You didn't pay air passenger duty
You paid lower vehicle excise duty
You didn't pay any VAT on domestic electric and gas
You didn't pay student loan repayments
You didn't pay landfill tax

You can't cherry pick on particular tax and ignore all the others

Over the past few decades, there's been a massive shift away from direct tax (earnings tax) and onto indirect taxes (spending taxes).

Indeed they do.

One good thing that Gordon Brown introduced was the starting rate of income tax of just 10%. Unfortunately the pillock scrapped it again within a couple of years!

There's no need to have rates of 0%, then 20% then 40%.

We could very easily have a lot more rates to make the tax graph a lot smoother, i.e. a 10% starting rate, then 20%, then 30% then 40% etc.

It actually makes perfect sense to have a zero threshold and then start very low, maybe 10% or maybe even lower at 5%. Get people into the "habit" of paying tax and then increase the rate in smaller increments so we don't have the same disincentive not to go over a threshold which is a massive behavioural issue. We have loads of people (literally millions) artificially keeping their incomes under £12.5k to avoid paying any tax - it's insane. It makes no sense as they only pay tax on the excess, but it's a massive behavioural mental barrier.

Depends on the tax rate. No need for it to start at 20% - it could start at 5% or 10%!

Pp I was replying to suggests a flat rate of 33%.