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 you genuinely believe that about 35% of the voting public in Scotland are English-hating bigots?

UC is not enough to live on, so it makes sense people will be applying for more benefits.
Even more so now, with LCWRA being cut in half for new claimants, and also anyone under 22 not being able to get it at all.

You vote labour but sound suspiciously like the stuff Farage comes out with?

Rejoin the EU.

I'm baffled at those that want to "ditch net zero" and the like. If you're worried about the economy, come back to this question in 20 years when millions of people will be packed in the few places in the world (which, if the AMOC collapses, may not include the UK) that are still comfortably liveable. I envy those that are not lying sleepless at night worrying about these things!

Foreign policy is never something that can be fully ignored but I think the central fact is that the Gaza war thankfully seems to be over. People have no need to protest the war since it's over.

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.

• what do you view as the most severe conditions? Apologies if this has already been asked.

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.

• what if they have become disabled/ill? I agree mainly but not as a blanket rule.

Reduce the minimum wage to help companies hire again.- reduce it to what?

Reduce housing benefit. People will have to move to somewhere cheaper or landlords will have to drop prices to what people can afford.

• Landlords definitely need to drop prices.

Agree with this!

This too- it's infuriating!

You think the person isn't a proper carer if the child has school and after school clubs?

Yes, we need more council housing

Re building regulations: why do we have so many? I've heard of similar issues in some US states. I don't want unsafe buildings to be built: what regulations can be safely removed, I wonder?

They probably think the child is not actually disabled if they go to school.

A friend of mine is a carer for her ADHD/ASD boy. She gets no money for that as she in on LCWRA, and it will just get deducted £1 for £1 anyway (which the benefit bashers do not seem to realise).
She is absolutely wiped out looking after him when he is at home, and regularly has to go in and get him from school when he becomes dysregulated.

I do not have a link to hand, but there is a very depressing figure about how many parents of disabled children have contemplated suicide.

That sounds very difficult...I've been reading up on the SNP recently and the Scotnet threads on violence in schools alone make me question why anyone is voting for them..

That's awful ...my DM is a carer (for a parent not a child) and I can't see how anyone can argue someone isn't a carer if the person they care for goes to school etc..Helping disabled children & their parents needs to be a priority.

This!

New flats in London have to have views in two different direction I believe. And they need two stairs / lift shafts is over a certain height, not just one.

I don’t think anyone would mind the high taxes if they were wisely spent, but the money is frittered away. Scotland proudly boasted about having no Doctors strikes, but this was because the SNP didn’t negotiate with the doctors just gave them what they asked for. All increases in funding for the Scottish nhs next year is entirely eaten up by pay rises, so services get no better.

I’m saying they don’t need to have the entire day off. Their child will sleep at night at some point every night. I have an ASD child. I get that it’s hard. But I still work because I have to pay the bills.

Gaza has absolutely zero effect on the current UK economic crisis. Iran does which is why we should concentrate on this, but Gaza is totally irrelevant.

Things like DLA/PIP/ADP are what keep some disabled people in work... and yes even very severely disabled ones. Some people need to let go of thinking you are only severely disabled if you are hooked up to tubes in bed 24/7.
Also, no benefit is awarded based on a condition.

Reducing NMW makes no sense when people working full time on NMW are still getting UC to live. What that will achieve is more being paid out in UC. How does that make sense?

Reducing housing benefit also makes no sense. Do you know about the difference between LHA and market rents anyway? Where I live, it is about £150pm. A single adult on £400pm UC would have to pay that. How would they afford to live?
Also, the problem of moving all the "poor" people to areas that are cheap. It seems a bit snobby to me.. NIMBY even.

I also notice you dragged up the thread where a single mum was working 16 hours to "keep her benefits".

You could have mentioned that her child is 2, and at that age, you are not expected to to work at all under UC rules. So the people telling her she was doing nothing wrong were doing nothing wrong. She is doing more than she is expected to, and she did say she would be upping her hours once her small child turns 3... and that she would get the same in UC whatever she did anyway.

But people put the boot in, called her selfish and entitled... a single mum that left an abusive relationship. Only on MN, eh.

Yes, agree on that. The Iran situation is unfortunately ongoing of course...even once it's over, the repercussions will probably last for quite a while...

Yes , this. I mean, I'd argue that it's important for a mother to be able to spend care for children that young and so it shouldn't be seen as a 'handout' for her to be supported to do that to some extent,anymore than a SAHM with a husband supporting her should be admonished for not working.

Yep. And she was working when she was not expected to anyway. But that was not enough for the vipers on here.

Thank you, I want to look into this. Is the lift shaft and staircase rule due to fire safety, I wonder? Or something else?

The rule about 2 views definitely seems over stringent.

This.

Somewhat related, I think there is case for maybe putting inhalers as something people can get for free. Maybe not...but when the list was drawn up, asthma medication wasn't as effective and easily available as it is now.