To feel utterly miserable about a future with Andy Burnham as PM?

[OneWarmHazelQuail]

I feel like I'm being stung in every possible way at the moment- £15 a day on tube to work, high mortgage costs, high energy costs, private schooling for SEN child (I was told state wouldn't be unlikely to assist him as he isn't mute or violent). My parents have had to help fund schooling it felt like my only hope as son has behavioural issues.

I also have an unsold old home that I have to rent out as it wouldn't sell. Buy-to-let mortgage costs, agent fees, maintenance and tax put me in a loss position.

I can't bear what the future holds with Andy Burnham. I have no doubt that he will find new and imaginative ways to keep me in this financial nightmare. I'm literally struggling from food poverty but regarded as rich by policy.

YABU- Andy Burnham is actually going to make things better

YANBU- I'm screwed

I get where you’re coming from but let’s give the man a chance at least.

Problem is we’re neck deep in debt, paying £110bn a year in interest payments. We need to get that down which means we all need to pay more tax and need to cut spending too, but the Labour backbenches won’t stand for cuts (very much typical tax and spend Labour types) and the moderate voters won’t stand for tax rises. You kind of can’t win.

And the borrowing was done under Boris Johnson with no plan to pay it back because all he was interested in was being popular. Worst PM this country has ever had.

This.

Tax wealth. It’s the only way. It’s what we did after WW2 and it meant that working people could have a decent standard of life. The inequality in this country is an outrage and set to get worse. That’s not good for anyone, including the wealthy.

So that needs to be the one and only focus.

I think Burnham could be good if given a chance.

I think diversifying regionally makes a lot of sense and his plans to replace the current useless combination of (very high) stamp duty and council tax with a land tax is economically sound.

He also has a plan and some degree of charisma and leadership, not like Boris who had charisma but was a charlatan, or Rishi and Keir who are fundamentally technocrats with little ideology at all.

He is marginally more left wing (in the traditional sense) than Starmer, but he will be nudging the dial, not going back to the Labour Party of the 70s. And that is leaning into a tide of money that has flowed to the wealthy via QE and Covid subsidies.

My optimism may well be a hostage to fortune, but I hope he can be a decent leader.

Your children get a free education. They get the NHS.

The largest benefit in the United Kingdom is the state pension. But we can’t touch that.

Yeh, and funnily enough it ramped right up around the time of Cameron's Big Society. The cumulative impact of the austerity policies his chancellor enacted (death by a thousand cuts) embedded that poverty by decimating social mobility. And his secretary of state for education fucked schools over.

But the deserving well-off of MN (who refuse to own how relatively well-orf they actually are) refuse to acknowledge the architects of their misery. What is it - you stood by while they went for those below you on the socioeconomic ladder but when it starts to affect you suddenly it's a crisis caused by the poor and dispossessed asking for a bit of help!?

I'm sick of hearing it. You made your choices but apparently it's all Labour's fault!

If you want advice about your child can I suggest you come onto the Special Needs boards on here and ask? Lots of knowledgeable posters who have been in your shoes.

I am still surprised that someone with a SN child would fear Andy Burnam after 14 years of the Tories dismantling SN support and educational provision.

Oh for goodness sake!

Yes, very sensible comment.

What real power does the PM have? Far, far less than we all think.

“Although Brexit has also hit our economy hard, which obviously was our only half of people's decision.”

Agree with your post but just needed to fix that last bit.

Just to ask, what did he do that was so wrong in your opinion, which makes him the worse leader?

The wealthy are very mobile and will just get up and leave or sift their money away in tax havens.

I understand that you don't feel secure and are fed up.
However, your ire is totally misplaced.

Andy Burnham is not responsible for any of that or the state the country is in now. Even with a magic wand, he can't fix it so the things would immediately improve for you.

Brexit, overinflated housing prices when you bought which caused you to be in negative equity now or inadequate provision in LA schools - that's all the work of the goverments of the past 10 years, mostly conservatives.

I saw a documentary the other day about young people forced to live in vans as they can't afford rent even earning a reasonable salary. Something has gone very wrong.

What makes you think you deserve a more privileged life than other people? What is so special about you that you feel entitled to two houses, private education for your children, and a government that acts to increase your wealth when the majority of the population have less than you? Because its highly unlikely you work harder than everyone else or are a better person. We are all of us managing with less these days and for some people that's having serious impacts. You are not needy, you are greedy, and at present there simply isn't enough for you to grab any more than you already have.

AI is getting completely embedded in the way we work. It is not a bubble that will burst. There are lots of people doing amazing things with it in multiple industries. Eg medical diagnosis, business analysis etc. Why would we as a country not want to be at the forefront of that? Have a low tax tech specialism to get the businesses based here. Allow ordinary people to invest to a point capital gains free in these industries. Embed our universities into it. Apprenticeships, you name it. There is so much money ripe for the taking and we are doing absolutely nothing to make the most of our Brexit freedoms.

It ramped because Blair lowered workers rights from eastern Europe and we were hit with an unprecented volume of lower socio eccomic people. Many of the hard grafters underdut all our trades hence Corbyn et all being against the EU. The criminals ransacked us our smaller charities and services were wiped out with people from different cultures who treat their DC differently and many unaccpmpained DC. Our hospitals / a and e were swamped because they didn't register with doctors and were suspicous about registering and in particular maternity wards were thrown into crisis.

On top of this massive seismic shock we were hit with the global credit crisis.

Which really put us on the back foot..

They already do avoid tax.

The only way is to tax wealth.

The most wealthy don’t pay enough tax. Fact.

I think property tax, as opposed to wealth tax, is a good idea.

Not only does it disincentivise owning property as a wealth store, it taxes foreign owners of expensive central London properties, maybe freeing them up for people to actually live in.

People should see property as a resource like any other. If you need a 3 bed house and own a 6 bed house, that takes away 3 beds. If people thought of hoarding property the same way as oil, say, or wheat, they would have a very different attitude.

Stamp duty is the worst property tax as it disincentivises mobility and is an additional tax on divorce, when people least need it.

He will leave the filthy rich alone and go for the slightly better off IMO with property taxes. With 0.5 percent council tax and 0.5 per cent wealth tax. Own a house worth 1/2 million. That'll be 5k tax please.

why should people who have invested a huge amount of time and effort into their education, worked long hours to better themselves and made a huge amount of personal sacrifice to further their careers and earn more, not deserve a more privileged life than people who haven’t? Why would people bother if it didn’t get them more? I sure would have bothered sitting the 20 professional exams I have taken since I graduated alongside having small children if there wasn’t a return at the end of it!

Do you mean anyone with more money than you

Because if landlords being allowed free rein, to put their rents up as high as they want

I assure you there are plenty of towns in the south east commuter belts with dead high streets and homelessness problems.

Bishops Stortford, St Albans are small market towns in highly affluent areas so not representative of a typical UK town centre.

He has left Greater Manchester 1.34 in debt, with the highest debt of any combined authority in England....Out of the frying pan..

But surely wealth is the result of hanging on to income rather than just spending it? Why should the government be able to tax at the point of earning it and the tax you for not spending it?