We need a political party that will…

[Skippp]

I work in finance and this country is on the brink of collapse. It’s spending too much, it’s not growing the economy and needs someone to come in and make good decisions quickly if we are to survive. It’s in a really serious state now and action must be taken. I’vote Labour, and did so hoping Keir would be brave enough to take the hard decisions needed but he’s been a pathetic wet blanket. We need a government who:

1. get rid of the triple lock. It’s laughably unaffordable.
2. reassess the whole benefits system and get rid of disability payments for anything but the most severe conditions, increasing the amounts to those who have these conditions.
3. restrict benefit payments to those born outwith the UK to those that have been in full time work for a large proportion of their adult lives here.
4. Reduce the minimum wage to help companies hire again.
5. Reduce housing benefit. People will have to move to somewhere cheaper or landlords will have to drop prices to what people can afford.
6. Go to an insurance backed healthcare system like they enjoy in Europe.
7. Ditch 95% of planning regulation and get Britain building again.
8. ditch net zero. No one is going to run a successful business in a country with the highest energy costs on the planet.
9. Reopen Scotland oil and gas production (inc refineries) and explore for more areas.
10. Simplify income taxes. Roll income tax into NICs. Give everyone child care hours, child benefit, personal allowance and increase tax rates to pay for this. Stop artificially restricting people from earning more.
11. Simplify VAT. Drop the threshold to £20k to ensure no one has a ceiling on earnings.
12. Simplify IHT. 5% on everything. No nil rates or exemptions.
13. rejoin the single market and customs union.
14. Explain policies better! Tell people how unaffordable the triple lock etc is. Tell them what the single market and customs union non is and why you’re rejoining. Tell people what the ‘bond markets’ are and why they’re important. Tell people why paying for rich people’s child care is much better for the economy than forcing high earners to drop their hours.
15. Probably ought to start deporting economic migrants with no right to stay quickler to throw some red meat to reform voters.

We need a party to take on ALL of these policies and move AT PACE on them. Who’s the party that will do this? I thought it was Labour but BOY was I wrong on that!

What are people adding to the list?

So at what level is ok cmht OK. How long after being hospitalised before you get benefits taken. You do understand people discharged from hospital aren't cured right? Or would you base it on Diagnosis what diagnosis would you cover bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders ptsd, ocd, panic disorder, agoraphobia.

Is that you, Nigel?

Reform never detail anything. And supporters don’t ask for the details. People therefore assume that as you have, such measures would not include seriously ill etc. Unless you get them to say so assume it does.

That's not necessarily true.

There is a finite pool of suitably qualified staff - consultants are no exception - and private hospital care is a competitor for their attention.

Data show that around 20% of NHS consultants undertake private work alongside NHS work.

But what I am saying is despite these checks their governments are paying more per capita - there will be no public savings as people are suggesting.

Reposting with the censor-triggering abbreviation for cryptocurrency...

I partially agree with the OP.

Frankly, the UK is in dire straits. The big issues being

• one that most countries are facing, that is most acute in developed countries - birthrates in perpetual decline, meaning an exponential decrease in working age people and increase in (traditional) retirement age ones. It is not an ideological judgment but a matter of fact that our state pension, by far the largest component of welfare is completely unsustainable in its current form.

• one relatively specific to the UK - we have a uniquely high number of people out of work on health grounds (again, adding to welfare spend, and reducing the pool of net contributors

Short term, we need to bite the bullet and slash welfare spending. That goes against every ideological instinct of mine, but the country is veering towards collapse quicker than most. Starmer gets that, but (1) doesn't have the grip on his party, and (2) is faced with extreme public backlash - as will be any leader who takes this particular bull by the horns.

So, some of the OP's "policies" make a lot of short term sense.

Longer term though - and while acknowledging that no country, however left or right, has found the answer I profoundly doubt that policies that would increase wealth inequality (e.g. minimum wage cuts) are conducive to a recovery in birth rates. Few want large families anymore and, many that do, cannot afford them. Absent a radical solution, we need to remove barriers and incentivize birth rate stabilization. The latter is a tough nut to crack, but we certainly shouldnt be adding to the economic barriers.

A revision to fossil fuel reliance sounds attractive but would take years to yield results and is short termism pure and simple.

Reform UK? Morons demanding unicorns. Immigration is not a viable long term solution to the demographic crisis but - like it or not - is the duct tape solution. Net zero Immigration is probably the single dumbest policy imaginable at the current moment, and a recipe for a huge spike in per capital tax burden, regardless of the sacrifices made to public spending.

The Greens? Look, I would be delighted if someone can put together a coherent vision for a more equitable society that is capable of sustaining itself. (Antisemitism aside...) it all sounds so very lovely, but they have no demonstrated a modicum of economic credibility, at a time where we need it in spades.

Labour (or at least, Starmer) seem to have something the extremes lack - a baseline understanding of the challenges we face and some sense of realism, although long term solutions seem elusive to them too. Unfortunately, politics has always prioritized the short term over the long term, and even means testing the winter fuel allowance caused such backlash that they u-turned in order to (try to...) remain electable.

Bitter pills need to be swallowed, and whoever administers them is almost certainly condemning themselves to election defeat - unless they can clearly articulate the problems and sell the solutions. Starmer - regrettably - can't even sell incremental steps to his own "supermajority" (and yes, that's partially down to traditional media, partially down to social media - but its an area where he is especially weak).

Anyway, as bad as tying are now, they look set to get worse come the next general election, especially if the Russia/cryptocurrency-backed slimeball slithers into number 10, so enjoy the soon-to-be good old days while you can, and pray the robots might save us yet.

My urologist last year was private only.

But if your point is that they are preventing NHS patients from getting treatment by doing that, they aren't. They do the hours they are paid to do. If the NHS wants more hours it can pay someone else or pay them to do extra hours.

People who repost long posts are doing so to hope people don’t read a post further up .

No Government would dare to abolish the triple lock in the current climate. They would immediately lose the pensioner vote in droves, which no party can afford to do as they form a significant chunk of the electorate.

The richest don't pay much tax. They off shore, have tax breaks. We need to tax them fairly ie tax investment income/capital gains the same as income from.
employment. You know, actually working for a living.

I'm sure pouring over your investment portfolio is not more tiring than working as a nurse, teacher, road sweeper, bin man, carer etc. Indeed you can get some one to advise you to save you the trouble, I'm sure .We'd have plenty for the NHS, education, roads, housing etc. No they wouldn't leave. They like it here. And, they'd barely notice a change in life style - they have so much.

The richest 50 families have over £468 billion exceeding the wealth of the poorest 50% of the population ie 30 million people.

Only 2.6% of our country’s total health expenditure is private insurance so it really wouldn’t make much of a difference

Over half of those things I am against. Sounds like Reform have got in your head. Cutting minimum wage would mean I cant afford my rent/bills. Good way to make lots of people homeless, that along with cutting housing benefit(although I don't claim any personally). I guess we could set up a load of tent cities for people, like in America. Along with getting rid of the free Healthcare too. Sounds wonderful! It really is going to be like being the 51st state!

That’s the problem though!!
When I say ‘what about people with schizophrenia?’ people say ‘oh no not that person! They deserve PIP’ but you could say that about everyone. Getting PIP is not a cake walk, and so you’d think people would understand that those entitled to it probably need it.
Who are you saying is undeserving? Let me a guess, a friend of a friend’s ex neighbour who apparently got 40,000K on PIP despite having a full time job as a snowboarding coach and doing am dram on the side…,

As someone approaching retirement age, one of the very few points you make that I agree with is that the triple lock needs to go. We still have the outdated view that pensioners are financially vulnerable as a group, which is no longer true. We need to accept that we need to take our share of the cuts (keeping in place protection for those who need it) as inter generational inequality will destroy our society and long term financial security.

Sir starmer get his own act of parliament about his pension.

They’ll argue it till they’re blue in the face but they benefited from lower housing costs (houses were 3 times the average wage when they bought, compared to about 10 times now), a lower tax burden, lower cost of living, mortgage interest repayments being set off against their tax, being able to survive on a single income so that childcare costs weren’t anywhere near as onerous, the list goes on. But they see all that as a right, and look down on the younger generations with scorn and contempt, and want to pull the ladder up after themselves
This is true to some extent but also leaves out many key factors.

For one, previous generations made choices based on benefits for their future. They made sacrifices to invest in the future. Previous generations made many sacrifices that today's generations are fighting against. Maternity leave was 6 weeks full pay, no such thing as flexible work. Working under 40 hours a week, laughable. No sick pay for depression or anxiety etc... people had to save to pay for any luxuries. They didn't have two cars or more in one household, let alone brand new cars on credit. They didn't travel like we do now, holidays abroad were either a luxury, or nothing like all inclusive, which was the privilege of the rich. Kids didn't do the number of activities they do now. I could go on.

The main difference is they accepted many sacrifices for the benefits to come in the future.

The newer generations value immediate gratification over investment for the future. A future they don't really believe in.

There is a sense that new generations want to take from what the elders got through sacrifices for them to enjoy immediately. So yes, they do rebel against this notion.

As an example. I started work at 16, whilst doing my A levels. Worked through my graduate studies because my parents certainly didn't see that they should fund me.

My first grasduate job was very low pay, so I could only rent sharing for years. I worked 45 hours a week. Still I felt privileged to have earned my independence. I worked hard to impress the bosses and get promoted, even though that often involves doing things that were beneath me. No car, I couldn't afford it. No holiday or gym membership or anything like this. It took three promotions to get to a point of saving and consider buying a property. That was working FT with two children having only had 16 weeks maternity leave, for which I had to save to afford. It felt like a luxury. I became a house owner at 31 years old, had my first car at 28 years old. Had my first proper holiday at 35 years old. That despite holding a managerial role full time and a masters degree.

There is a lot of misconceptions about how easy we had it. But I do also agree that it was easier to get on the housing market.

It would if you funnel the money that employers pay to BUPA etc into the NHS instead. Loads of private sector companies offer private medical cover. It goes straight to private equity companies generally
This is laughable for its ignorance...do you know that many private care is now actually provided by the NHS...by their private department!

But why should someone who has been prudent and has put money aside all their life to improve their quality of life once retired then have to rely on that money for basic living, when somebody who hasn't bothered to save is given a pension to live on?

Because we can’t go on with older people being funded to this extent by the younger generation - that’s a much greater inequality. I’m not saying abolish the state pension altogether- just that we shouldn’t be immune from cuts.

The pension when created was a social contract that the elderly would be looked after. A basic minimum for all and then if you choose to add to it you can.

I want this for me, and my children, and their children. Once thrown away, this hard fought for contract will be difficult to restore and there will be many regrets in the future from those trying to end it.

Those consultants are doing private work outside their contracted NHS hours. If they weren’t seeing private patients they’d be on the golf course, not treating HS patients.

The flip side is that working age people, in employment, should be able to afford a reasonable standard of living.

With a society increasingly made up of people-to-be-supported vs people-to-support them, that becomes increasingly impossible and, further, makes having children unaffordable - further fueling the (apparently) exponential decline towards demographic collapse.

I’d like a politician who hadn’t worked in finance , law or some other very high job. I’d like some who knew the consequences of the cuts you propose. A little empathy might be nice too but I suppose you can’t have everything.

Why do people always jump on the disabled? I’m in my early 30s and became disabled. I didn’t choose this but it’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.

I agree with most of this list. Re the minimum wage any reduction/non increase should go hand in hand with a big increase to the personal allowance (ie the free amount you don't pay tax on) which has not kept up with inflation (to say £20,000). This would mean that the burden of increasing people's take home pay would be with the government who would be forced to decrease their massive, wasteful spending rather than employers and would also have no affect on inflation/prices as the minimum wage does as businesses have to increase their prices to pay it. No Labour govt world do this - they're always a disaster.

And maybe if they were allowed to work more without being taxed on their pensions, they'd work more hours full stop.