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?

We all vote with our purses/wallets we always have. So, we all want different things.

I’d just like a few honest politicians that didn’t seem to take backhanders, don’t fiddle their tax etc, and don’t think that choosing not to work should be a lifestyle choice. 🙄

I think yoigjt have liked my gorgeous cat once too. 😻

Thats not what op is suggesting she's suggesting wages being lowered so more staff can be hired, not to pay more tax. Thats why I said would you be happy with your wages being lowered for your company to profit from it.

Tesco made a profit of £3.1 billion ending Feb 2026. I think their doing ok without screwing over their staff

They already do screw over their staff. How many need to claim uc to live despite working there

I don’t vote with my wallet. You do you. I want better public services. I’m prepared to pay for that. What I’m not prepared to pay higher taxes for is money to get chucked at the ever-expending welfare bill.

It’s an incredibly tight margin. When you put up wages you cannot reduce them again. I do question the intelligence of the people that responded to that research though. The average profit margin for the NHS was said to be 34%!!!!!

Note: the NHS of course makes no profit whatsoever!

The pp mentioned AMOC. If the Atlantic conveyor belt slows or stops - which it has done in the past - no Scotland will not become warmer. I don’t know full details of how it could interact with climate change, in my defence no one does: but it is more likely to lower temperatures across Europe and also make us drier. Too cold and dry for food production. That conveyor belt is what keeps Western Europe far warmer than Canada on the same latitude.

People are far too complacent about climate change or any environmental issue. Britain as a vastly overpopulated island is very vulnerable. Its soils are already strained and stretched to breaking point, without climate change. The last big climate change destroyed a vast area of land, now known as Doggerland, in this part of the world, and we’re on track for something similar.

But you said you wanted to reduce minimum wage now your saying you can't reduce them so which is it

Yet you have been able to comment on this thread throughout the day for the last 2 days while us on uc have been at work

Yep we are headed for environmental, economic and societal collapse. It may take 50 to 100 years (or not) but by god they will be painful.
A bit like when we waited for covid to hit denying it would, against all evidence to the contrary until it was too late. Only we have already been waiting and denying this for decades.
This time we are talking about food shortages, water shortages, fuel shortages, medicine shortages, mass migration, resource wars etc etc
All the money in the world won't save us. Money will be irrelevant. Food will be currency and many millions here will die.
Make the most of it while you can. Or try to lobby for action. Although that is like banging one's head off a brick wall.

Reduce minimum wage to ensure more people are employed and the government tops up. Having people in work is so much more beneficial than having them not working.

Depends on your career really. I’m senior enough for my boss to leave me alone and know that work will be done / deadlines will be met. I’m not working in a call centre with someone monitoring how many times I go to the loo a day.

How about we increase minimum wage and stop subsidising employers? Then use the money to employ more workers to improve public services.

So reduce poor people's wages but not yours

Christ. They’re getting the same money. It’s topped up by government because it’s cheaper for the government to top up wages than to have the employee on the dole, which they would be if the minimum wage was jacked up too high for the employer to make a profit.

Have you got that yet? What’s a better alternative?

Because that would cost the government more. Because people would be made redundant. If the minimum wage goes up by £2, that’s 6 extra pints that have to be sold an hour in a pub. Fine if it’s a city pub. A lot in a country pub so that increase has just nudged the employee much closer to the dole queue.

That will make the collapse slow and drawn out, but it doesn’t insulate the current nations of the UK from having it happen. It might be time for a reality check. Nationalists are now in charge in Wales, Scotland, and NI - the “political” collapse of the UK is happening as we speak. This politicians of this country couldn’t be bothered to follow any expert advice on Brexit, and ended up with the “hardest” possible Brexit as a result. And they’re going to end up with the hardest possible “velvet divorce” between the nations of the UK if they keep up the denial about this happening, too. My money is on Scotland first, then NI, then Wales 😆 Scotland will probably use the time between now and the next GE to start (and finish) negotiations to rejoin the EU as soon as independence is approved, which will in turn secure the vote for independence.

i'm not "adding to the list ", I'm ripping whole sections out as I type. What a surprise – not – that you work in finance…

If I could give this a billion thumbs up I would.

As for:

"Do people truly not get that climate change will cause 'economic' migration on a scale no politcal party would be able to cope with?"

THIS. I have been saying it, lonely and alone, for years. And yet it is patently, blindingly, crushingly true. That not one of the main parties seems even to have realised this is, quite frankly, terrifying.

I actually agree with a lot of what you have said.

But with your list I am going to be worse off. I own a small business. You just lumped me with a 20% loss straight out the park.

Again with NICS.

It should be that people who run businesses and are self employed GET MORE financial benefit.

I don’t have sick pay, I don’t have employer insurances and protections like big business. I didn’t get covid pay. I don’t get a pension topped up. I can’t afford a pension at all!

And if I was in an employment role. Guess what? I could whack 2k a month into my pension, get topped up by UC and still have the same take home! If I rented I would get that paid too.

So business owners. Who spend years unpaid building things, risk their assets, their money. Should be taxed less than employees!

For me, it is too genuinely support the working class. Support those who are working ie income tax, nursery fees, carers allowance

You know every country in Europe has a different health care system? They are not all insurance based. Denmark for eg has a system similar to the NHS, Switzerland is all private. Why do you think they are a monolith?

Truly terrifying.

I agree we need to take climate change seriously. The problem with the Government’s approach is that it doesn’t recognise that we can only be really influential on climate change if we have the strong economy to enable it, and if we don’t hit people so hard with bills as a result of our energy policy that they end up voting for parties which have little interest in addressing climate change.

At the end of the day, it’s the end result which matters. It Labour’s Net Zero policies help drive people to Reform, it will have been worse for the climate that doing nothing.

And crazy, naive virtue-signalling policies such as refusing to develop the extraction of the gas we have in the North Sea (even though Norway doesn’t have an issue!), just makes matters worse as we just import gas from elsewhere and purchase goods (that might have been made here if we hadn’t suppressed manufacturing with super-high energy bills) from places powered by coal.

As I wrote before, Ed Miliband’s approach is akin to someone using a starvation diet to lose weight. All very virtuous for sure, but ultimately counterproductive.