Thank goodness tax rise scrapped

[Jems557]

So we’re a blended large family, so after maintenance and all the outgoings for our large combined family we don’t have very much left at all, as obviously we need a big house so our mortgage and council tax is a lot, we need a bigger than average (although several year old) car etc. However we don’t claim any benefits, my DH works hard to provide for his and our children but so much is taken in tax anmd maintenance already, there is no tax allowance for raising children. This would of hit us hard

Oh this is just so awful. This goverment is making the UK look like a complete bunch of clowns.

So anything the public objects to they will immediately say oh sorry yes we won't do that after all then cos you know we wouldn't want to have a backbone and actually run the country.

Borrowing costs have predictably gone up this morning. So now the situation is worse than if she had just kept her trap shut.

Also Ed Conway Sky news podcast watched yesterday said growth from OBR was worse and so I don't know where all this talk of better growth is coming from.

Starting to think we're going to wake up on budget day and the news will be KS/RR have fled the country and there is no budget.

I mean even us plebs know the rules to fix finances when debt is out of control

1. Cut spending
2. Pay off debt as fast as possible to reduce interest bills
3. Bring in more income (tax rises for RR)
4. Put something in place to make the future better (investment/growth for RR)

I'm afraid they have gotten themselves in the dreaded doom loop now.

Spending is increasing cos interest rates are now going up more.

Growth is stalling everywhere and people seem to be losing their jobs.

They want to cut interest rates for us plebs to encourage spending but can't because inflation is too high

Our currency is now dropping which makes good comes into the country more expensive for all of us (so less spending by us)

This U Turn is very, very bad news. I had hoped she was going to continue with her new found bravery and announce sensible cuts to benefits etc and then some plans for growth/investment.

Oh well at least having lived through the seventies I know what is coming.

They seem to float ideas through 'leaks' and then change their minds when public opinion is vehemently against them. I wonder if they actually have any kind of plan?

I think Starmer is a decent man, who's doing well on the international stage, but doesn't seem to inspire his own country. The cunning plan to quash a possible leadership challenge made them look daft yesterday. What a good way to put into the public's mind that they might prefer someone else as PM!

Countries should be run based on cold hard facts, not emotions. And the cold hard fact is that we pay in too little to fund the services demanded, and we waste vast amounts on things that should not be government funded.

We've given over government to a bunch of backbenchers with bleeding hearts who couldn't balance their own chequebooks.

Whilst I'm no fan of commercialised gambling in the least - I don't object to a few quid on the 2p falls machines at the seaside or the odd community raffle for a good cause - I don't see how they could practically tax winnings, unless they also allow punters to offset their losses against their tax bill.

Plus, don't they already tax gambling - albeit with a few percent on everybody's stake rather than a great big chunk of the few lucky winners' booty? That's certainly how the lottery is run: you pay tax when you enter, not if you win.

I’m not sure what that has to do with tax.

The Clean Air Act in 1954 (after the smog) took some time to impact water quality in the Thames as run off pollution continued to pollute it. Incidentally, there had been a clean air commission in the 13th century (the 1280s if I remember correctly) resulting in Edward I issuing a royal proclamation banning the burning of sea-coal in London in 1307. It stated that the smoke caused an "intolerable smell" and "injury to bodily health". They weren’t wrong. That stayed in place until the Industrial Revolution, so about half a millennium.

Have a look at this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/282841/debt-as-gdp-uk/

It started to ramp up with the financial crisis of 2008, then took another big jump with Covid. It's not good and it will take a monumental effort over decades to get it down to the levels we had under Blair. With a rapidly ageing population, and huge and longterm uncertainty in the economy, it's hard to see how it can be achieved.

People who want to pay more tax. You can donate voluntarily.

It was an answer to someone who posted about the good old days of the 60s when apparently, among other things, the rivers were clean. I managed to quote the wrong post.

We live in a representative democracy. People do not vote based on 'cold hard facts' - increasingly so in fact in the era of social media. What do you suggest?

PS
thr poo problem,,however was resolved in the 19th century with Joseph Bazalgette’s London sewer design. The first modern sewer in the world and the model for all the others from Paris to Shanghai. Many built with help from British sewage engineers. So there wasn’t a poo problem in the Thames in the 1950s and 60s. There hadn’t been since the 1860s, which meant thankfully there hasn't been cholera in London since then.

Yes, I’m not sure it’s definitive.

Lisa Nandy was asked about this on bbc breakfast this morning, and I assume if Labour actually wanted to get the message out that they weren’t raising income tax they’d have told her to say “look we said we weren’t going to, there were reports that we were, reports now that we aren’t, but I can say that the manifesto pledge stands”
What she actually said was (paraphrasing a bit) “Rachel will make sure she makes these decisions carefully so that they are fair”.

People who want the winter fuel allowance, universal credit payments, taxis to school for ADHD kids, to have higher welfare payments - feel free to give your own money.

They need to raise income tax. I'm fed up with public services not working, the money needs to come from somewhere.

If you're listening, Labour press office... just raise it. And then start TELLING people about the things that the Tories broke and you are fixing, loudly and persistently, because no-one has a clue.

It's a tactic straight from the Trump-administration playbook : drip-feed scary possibilities to the public for weeks/months and then when they do the 'not-so-bad' but still shit thing, people think they're heroes.

As others have said, it's still going to suck; it might just not suck quite as bad as they wanted people to think it would be.

I do wish they wouldn't 'kite fly' and be so blooming bendable. They need to work out the right plan, explain it clearly and stick to it, just like meetings four step plan above. It does just feel like things will get worse from here with such a weak government.

There will be raised taxes somehow is my betting

I remember the case of the proud elderly lady who died a few years back. She had been reasonably well-off by individual standards - over half a million - but nothing that would make any difference whatsoever to an entire country's economy.

She was 'old school' and hated any idea of being in debt; so when she heard about the national debt, she (possibly naively) bequeathed her money to "whichever government is in office at the date of my death", ostensibly so that they could pay off some of the national debt with it.

She died during the coalition government's term, and they basically started fighting and determining to take the money for themselves as a supposed party political donation, rather than to actually add it to the nation's balance sheet.

Ah. Yes - there is no golden age. Pollution changes over time. Diesel pollution has smaller particulates than coal, but a lot of toxic chemicals. You can’t see it, but it can do harm.

Britain generally does quite well for air quality because we are a windy island on the western seaboard of the Atlantic with the prevailing wind hitting us with little interruption. It’s why we have a wet climate, but it also sweeps the pollution away. By contrast, Tehran for example is in a bowl in the mountains, so the pollution struggles to escape. Even northern Italy retains pollutants for much the same reason.

Yeah right - where do you think Bazalgette's sewers outflowed to? Straight into the Thames, with no treatment, just a bit further downriver from the gentle folk. The Thames was biologically dead until the late 70s, when raw sewage dumping was finally banned (although it has of course now re-emerged with frequent overspill events due to a lack of investment by the water companies in keeping up with the expansion of London).

A huge percentage will also be carers of disabled children who very few people want to hire due to how difficult it can be balancing work with the caring needs of a disabled child.

Pointless anyway as more people just end up loathing them for being manipulated so relentlessly.

Well done you and your DH for working hard to riase your children with a work ethic. The number of net contributors in this country is plummeting. The meagre growth we have is all down to the public sector growing, the private sector is in freefall due to government policies (energy costs, NI increases, workers rights to come etc).
Soon the whole lot will crash down. The country needs people who pay their own way like you instead of relying on the dwindling pool of net tax payers to pay for everything.

Can you link to this story?

No. They didn’t actually. You underestimate he genius. He built the embankment, which continues king beyond the tidal zone to the North Sea. He also thought ahead and designed his sewage works for a growing London population.

Subsequent factory owners bypassed the sewage network, which is another matter, but domestic sewage in London did not flow into the Thames after the London sewage works replaced the medieval septic tanks. Clearly, in more recent years, we have had capacity issues (hence the need for a bigger sewage tunnel under the Thames) and this has resulted in overspill and dumping, but this is usually caused by heavy rainfall.

Excrement tends to harbour disease. Heavy pollution kills entire ecosystems. It’s the heavy pollution prior to the Clean Air Act that was the primary culprit.

Just a couple of weeks ago (BBC)

Pressed on Labour's pre-election pledge not to hike income tax, VAT or National Insurance, she says: "It would, of course be possible to stick with the manifesto commitments, but that would require things like deep cuts in capital spending"

She all but confirmed that she was planning to increase one of those taxes. She said that they’ll do “what’s right”. So what is her plan now? I doubt she even knows. The cynic in me wonders whether they leaked the plans originally, so everyone panics, and then leaks that they’ve abandoned the idea so everyone then thinks “oh look it’s not so bad after all!” Even if she doesn’t increase income tax or VAT, we could all still be negatively affected by other decisions. The choices are either increased taxes, reduced spending or increased borrowing.

Too many people say they want improved services and that increased taxes should be brought in, but think that those higher taxes should only apply to other people.

The current situation is not sustainable. We have an ever decreasing number of net contributors and there comes a point where that becomes unaffordable.

Unfortunately, none of this comes as surprise to many of us. People voted for Labour when they thought tax hikes would only affect others, and are now moaning that they’re negatively impacted after all.