Kemi B - the best form of welfare is a well paying job...

[Oofftheflooff]

She is absolutely right isn't she? Discussing the triple lock pension challenge and instead focusing on getting people into work. Do you agree with her ? Working 3 or 6 or 9 hours to then top up with benefits isn't the way forward (not including disabilities in here )

It won't be in this budget. They won't do anything in this budget, maybe a couple of sweeties and a bit of the likes of gambling tax which nobody cares about. They are preparing ground for snap election so this budget will be "do no harm".
If they form government after snap election, most likely within next 9 months, then it's going to be well interesting

I didn’t know that, god its even worse than it looks.

NEETs are included in that number if they’re claiming benefits that aren’t disability related.

oh, they all now claim mental health benefits

I don’t think they’d risk it, I know they’re doing better now in the polls but it was a complete fluke last time and they absolutely know it.

Do they now? You just made that up.

And it wasn’t a fluke @JanesEmu. The electorate was sick and tired of the Tories and voted tactically to remove them. It was the most intentional and strategically fought election of my lifetime.

What are you taking about? they got less votes than Corbyn. Reform split the centre right/right vote l, as you say people were fed up of Tories. A total fluke, one they squandered within their first few months with their economic illiteracy.

It was a fluke for Starmer, he didn’t last.

If you think it was a fluke you don’t understand what that means. The Tories lost numerous seats in their heartlands to the Libdems because of tactical voting. There were websites advising voters which way to go to defeat the Tory in their constituency. The spread of votes is proof that it wasn’t a fluke.

Yes unemployment figures are disjointed from economically inactive which is much higher.

Who described people who earm above NMW as ultra rich?

Of course it's not crazy but I see that several other people have already explained this.
What is completely crazy is the tax banding, especially the 100k-120k, which completely disincentivize people from working harder/taking promotions.
I haven't heard Kemi talking about overhauling the whole tax system though, especially the income tax system. She just seems to be releasing sound bites about cutting stamp duty or IHT.

I don't think anyone likes financial cliff edges. They're stupid.

Remind me who brought this one in, and who then had a decade to fix it but didn't?

Cliff edges are always unfair. I think the removal of the personal allowance, albeit tapered, is insane and Badenoch would get a lot more support if she’d gone for reform of the tax system at that level rather than the somewhat niche childcare issue.

Yes, but there does need to be well paying jobs. There aren't.

Thing is, our whole social contract is based on the idea that hard work = comfortable life. As it goes, it was John Locke who first wrote about this in the 17th century. It was around the same time that the government (as it was then) was introducing various Poor Laws that separated the mass of jobless people into deserving and undeserving poor. Those who deserved help, would get it and those who didn't deserve help wouldn't. This is the rhetoric that KB is currently using. It's about 400 years old. Nice to see that we've developed as a society.

Interestingly, one thing Locke was concerned about was inheritance and unearned wealth. How do you convince the general population to work hard if they see others not working hard but still getting rich. In particular, Locke was interested in the idea of property and increasing property prices. This should sound spookily familiar. In today's money, if a man can buy a property in 1995 for £60,000 and it's worth £660,000 in 2025 (exactly my case), then that means he's done nothing over the past 30 years to 'earn' that £600,000. Instead, his wealth has increased by £20,000 every year for 30 years without him having to lift a finger. Indeed, for the first 10 years the wealth he was accruing from the house price rise was more than he was actually earning from work. In that sense, the 'well paying job' was simply owning the property. See the problem?

If you want a country to work, you have to make it worth their while. The problem we have now is that hard work doesn't really pay for a lot of people because the real wealth is tied up in property. And increasingly this is either property they can't afford to buy or property that's costing them an arm and a leg due to inflated prices. Reverting to the 17th century definitions of deserving and undeserving poor isn't going to fix this problem. KB should really read Locke.

Very interesting, thank for mentioning John Locke. I'd not heard of him before, although I can see that I should have, but I've been arguing the same thing that you just mentioned for some time now.

The say history rhymes and I'm seeing humans now making the same mistakes that they made historically, which landed them in huge trouble. Humans sure don't get any smarter over time!

There's nothing wrong with inheritance. Don't you want to give everything you have to your kids?

Not necessarily, no. I inherited from my mum. We're all Dutch, though DSis and I live in the UK. So we paid some inheritance tax (which is tiered based on amount and closeness of the relationship to the deceased) and both got a chunk.of money we hadn't earned. Absolutely fine. Greed is not good. And avarice is considered sinful.

Not particularly. I’d rather see them enjoy it now.

Same. I'm only 20 years older than my oldest child. So if my health holds, they could be in their late 60s by the time they inherit, by which time I'd hope they'd be established and independent.
I will help them now when I can (though two of the three out earn me by some margin already), will pay for any care I need, pay my taxes, support my charities and enjoy my life. Which is exactly what they want me to do.

Same. If I live to be the same age as my dad did (unlikely!) mine will be 78. I’m giving with warm hands.

If you want to see them enjoy it now give it to them now?

I am. ☺️

That's what I have done with much of what I've inherited. They know they need to hold some back for tax in case that A14 gets me.

I think a problem with the Inheritance Tax policy - even for the people I think it’s designed to appeal to - is a lot of middle aged, middle class parents are actually much less worried about what their kids might inherit, and much more concerned about whether they’ll be able to see their kids settled in a family home of their own. The problem with the policy Kemi Badenoch is talking about is it risks disincentivising older people from downsizing and so risks further stagnation in the housing market.

But I think the bigger problem the conservatives have is they talk the talk on fiscal responsibility and the importance of getting the debt down, but at the same time, they seem to be sprinkling tax cuts like confetti. After Truss, I do think they’re going to have to do much, much more than this kind of sound bite economics if they want to prove they can be trusted on the big issues facing the economy.