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?

Reduce the minimum wage??

Are you going to pay the bills I’m no longer able to afford if you do??

Noone cares.

Addressing climate change would help drive the economy!
Our high energy prices are not only due to net zero. Its nonsense to say getting gas out of the north sea would miraculously solve our issues. It wont.
We cant wait for 'strong growth' before addressing something that would remove/ reduce our reliance on gas. Even leaving cimate aside renewables are by far the cheapest form of energy. And sorting out the infrastructure so we can distribute it properly and developing nuclear as a balancing item would generate jobs and growth.

So you want to privatise healthcare, abandon building regs, stop the boats, open gas and oil drilling and ditch net zero?

That will be absolute destruction for the country socially, financially, environmentally. These are all short term policies that will mean the UK is even more damaged in the next decade. Tax the wealthy, tax corporations, tax digital services. Invest in preventative healthcare, renewables and infrastructure. Above all, education, so the UK’s workforce in general - but also tech and research - are competitive.

Your list is a MAGA list.

Because like I wrote before which you chose to ignore all the negatives that come along with uc like only being allowed 6k in your bank account, regular meetings, them having full access to your bank account. If you or child are hospitalised for a long period you lose your money. Payment errors that aren't picked up until April meaning you suddenly have you uc cut. Its not as easy as they just give you money. I would rather my employer just pay a decent wage and not have to deal with any of this

It sounds like the type of job that will soon be taken by ai so be careful what you wish for

I agree. This thread almost seems to be accepting some kind of permanence to the payment of UC.
We need to work our way out of this trap. Tesco et al could spend a little less on the nice to have’s, get people to do the work.
And maybe we need to stop and question whether tech for everything really is the best option.

It wouldn’t cost the government more if they used the money saved to create more tax paying public service jobs. You didn’t even bother to read my post, did you?

All of the above are already being taxed. Don’t you get it? There are no other sources of funds to be tapped, the country is skint and things like the highest energy prices on the planet and excessive building regs mean no companies are going to invest here ever again. We’re already totally screwed.

Why do we want more public sector jobs? We’ve got too many public servants as it is and we’d have to pay them 100% of the salary costs, not part of the salary costs that we would if they were employed by the private sector and topped up.

Not at all!

Because we’ve got rubbish public services which need investment to improve. Far better to use the money saved by UC top ups to invest in tax paying jobs so money flows back to the Treasury instead of out of it.

Like @Skipp, I'm not convinced that more investment in public services is necessary. Which specific areas of public service would you target for expansion @BIossomtoes?

I tend to think that government tries to do too much because it values the power of patronage. More money, more efficiently directed to areas of greatest need is required in education and social care, including housing, but most of that spend is within local government.

The NHS is already the largest cost to the country, followed by debt interest. Transport and infrastructure is looking tired and could use an injection of cash but almost every major project in recent memory has run late and over budget. HS2 is the classic example, but defence projects offer a host more.

Oh, how about the police so crime is actually investigated? Roads - everyone’s complaining about potholes. You yourself suggest three areas that need investment so channel the money saved by getting rid of UC top ups into those things. Public services can’t be improved without creating jobs so stop subsidising employers and use the money to benefit all of us. Bonus points because those newly created jobs will reduce the cost of unemployment and increase the tax take.

Public services are on the brink of collapse due to low staffing. Look at the appalling maternity scandals, and some of the more recent news about how women in general are ignored by the health profession.

The problem, if minimum wage cannot be raised - and I agree it can’t for social reasons. it has already been raised so much that jobs once recognised as skilled are no longer worth doing - is the costs. Again and again, it’s the costs. When land prices were encouraged to rise way beyond the reach of wages this country was destroyed. When tax payers are having to pay the cost of energy to business because it’s unaffordable to them, the economy was destroyed.

Neoliberalusm has killed us all. Again. Just as liberalism killed so many the first time round.

A major problem with minimum wage is that it disproportionately affects women. It’s women whose wages have been pushed down to a maximum minimum. Meanwhile men’s wages go up and up. There’s a major problem when you’re asking women to teach (as minimum wage teaching assistants who are routinely left with classes) lads who can muck about for 15 years and then go on to get unskilled jobs that pay much higher than their teachers. Any driving jobs, binmen… purely because they can use their male muscle to bugger out on strikes that would see women nurses and nursing assistants attacked on the streets.

Agree with a lot of this but not cuts to minimum wage. Minimum wage needs to be enough to live on without taxpayer funded top ups. Otherwise the tax payer is subsidising businesses like Amazon while they cream off billions in profit.

Minimum also needs to be SIGNIFICANTLY more than any kind of benefits to encourage people to seek work.

Again @BIossomtoes I agree everything run locally is running on fumes, but most of the issues start at the local level, and it's not because council tax is set too low or levied too narrowly. £365 per month here.

Yes, to better police investigations and more police presence: the old bobby on the beat saw the likely ne'er-do-wells as small children young, knew their turf, and more time/money to investigate -- but dump some of the paperwork load too. However, we have become, especially in diverse urban areas, a much more unruly society and there's fat chance of us returning to Dixon of Dock Green days any time soon.

IMO, we've lost sight of the balance between personal rights and freedoms and civic duty and responsibility. Hence the vastly increased spend on litigation and indemnity insurances for professionals. One small example, but replicated time and again.

I'd welcome any constructive input from anyone about where we as a society could do better -- without resorting to the line "they should do something about ..."!

But public sector productivity is rock bottom. We don’t need more workers, we need the workers we have to work more efficiently. Of course that’s a sweeping statement, but some departments are awash with people who do work that could be covered by one person working efficiently compared to 10 people working as they do now.

I worked adjacent to one such department once. We had 10 x the people working in this department compared to the same department in the next LA. What’s going on there I asked. My colleague rolled her eyes and said that yes they were all taking the piss but they were all in the union and no one could be bothered trying to make them redundant. My sister worked in a department where they all worked 10-12, 2-4 and filled in the time sheet claiming to have done a full days work. She left as that’s no way to build a career. These departments are everywhere, interspersed with other departments working their fingers to the bone. Which is why I left. I couldn’t stand seeing such lack of enthusiasm.

The police I agree need more staff. Road workers - some I see working incredibly hard. Then some I see sitting in their van doing nothing for hours on end.

There won't be more money because more pubs, cafe's and other businesses will close and those people will need benefits.

Edit to say I remember as a teenager earning £2 an hour waitressing on a Saturday. That would be around 1993. That £2 would be covered by 1 or 2 hot drinks. Then all the cake, sandwiches etc would result in an average bill for 2 people of say £15 or £20. A lot relative to my £2 wage.

If that business now uses an adult earning £12 an hour they need to sell a lot more to break even on wages as people are not going to pay £10 for a tea or coffee. The relative table bill would be about £60 for coffee and cake.

There won't be more money because more pubs, cafe's and other businesses will close and those people will need benefits.

They won’t if there’s investment in public sector jobs. They won’t be on benefits and we wouldn’t be using taxpayers’ money to prop up unviable businesses.

That’s a really good point re litigation etc. I’m not sure how solvable it is but a lot of my small business time is spend in audits, compliance and paperwork. Yes Health and Safety is important but we are so far removed from common sense and personal responsibility now. We’ll have 4 audits this month, all from different public bodies, auditing the same thing and frankly, I don’t think there would spot if we were doing something wrong as so much of it is concerned with was a box ticked on a bit of paper 3 months ago rather than looking on the shop floor with eyes to spot what’s going on.

Exactly @WhitegreeNcandle ! We take H&S very seriously (as you do when some of your work is in power stations and submarines) but the quality assurance assessor that visits annually to re-certify our practices just wants to be reassured that all our job tickets are fully completed.