Tory avoids huge tax bill but we have to pay

[mrshess]

This story makes me sick.
People are losing homes and going without food and this tory gets away with this!!!
Really Cameron are we in this together????

I think not

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11415870

I like to pay taxes because I like living in a pretty well run and safe country, which doesn't leave people in the lurch if they are in difficulties (for whatever reason) and which has a national health service and decent schools and so on.

Avoiding taxes, or the desire to reduce them = making other people pay more for these things. So the rich (by avoiding taxes) effectively take from everyone else (who does not have the means to).

I understand the "every man for himself" approach to governing, and I agree to some extent that the spending by the previous govt had got out of hand in some areas. However I will never be able to agree in any way with the "every man for himself" approach as I just can't ignore the people who get left behind by it.

Those on he left ought to look closer to home.

amothersplaceisinthewrong

Of course we need to fund public services. However I think the current 50% or so spent by the Exchequer is too high a proportion. I reckon 30%-35% would give us a much more dynamic economy.

Having low welfare costs, a much more efficient and less unionized public sector, and a smaller public sector will all help.

Or alternatively we could ditch trident, reduce the size of our armed forces, move govt depts away from london...

ISNT I agree 100% with your posts. I too get disheartened with the every man for himself attitude and the so what its legal argument.

Low welfare costs = screw the poor elderly and disabled. Standard tory policy.

What to be disheartened about?

Nothing to be disheartened about - if people can't afford to look after themselves then they have obviously done it all wrong and deserve to suffer.

= Tory ideology.

Every man for himself chaps!

Riven it's SCROUNGERS they're after...

It's all so shortsighted.

Well yes obviously the tories define anyone who needs benefits as SCROUNGERS as they have obviously done it all WRONG otherwise they'd have enough money, wouldn't they? Durrrrrrrrr. So they deserve everything they get. Or won't get, rather.

I don't remember the political debate on here ever being much other than "yar boo" to the opposite side.

And I think that emotions are still running high on both sides after the election result.

People with basic and fundamental ideological differences don't have much to debate, do they.

Longfingernails wants welfare cuts. She doesn't mention any other specific areas for cuts at all. Just welfare. Tory ideology. I don't like it. I'm not going to apologise for that.

ISNT/Riven Have to go out now but will answer later or tomrrow.

Is longfingernails Alastair Darling?

Who said anything about secret tories?

The people on this thread are quite open indeed about their preferred approach.

Across all parties it has been stated that cuts are required. The depth of the cuts and where they should fall is far from agreed. Labour have said all along that they would cut. This does not automatically mean that all the cuts the tories are making are agreed by labour, I mean come off it.

Let's wait and see what happens anyway. I will be very happy to be proved wrong about where we are headed with all of this.

First we can see if these ideas about closing tax loopholes amount to the paper they're written on...

Re "welfare cuts", there was a v interesting piece on \link{http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tt6r6\More or Less} on R4 on Friday.

I can't remember the exact figures (I was driving so couldn't make notes; do listen again though!) but when you take pensions & related payments out of the total "welfare" budget there isn't actually much left to cut - so Gideon will have to make some pension cuts if he wants to make a significant difference

Yes there is an excellent diagram which shows that the actual benefits that people mean when they talk about "benefits" in a Daily Mail styleee are a very very small proportion of the benefit.

Pensions and child benefit are teh biggest chunk.

Personally I think a steamlined "all in one" approach to benefits would be best - everyone gives their full details to one dept and then they pay or they receive IYSWIM. The current system is terribly cumbersome and the depts don't communicate/share info which is silly.

ISNT

Easy welfare cuts, which unfortunately the Tories won't cut: means testing pensioner TV licences, bus passes, child benefit, etc.

I fully support the cuts to tax credits for those on medium incomes and above, as well as the budget changes to ensure a big difference between what you get from working and what you can get in benefits.

I don't just want welfare cuts - I want quango cuts, cuts for all "campaigning" or "lobbying" state-funded charities, council cuts, public sector cuts to pay and pensions, and especially cuts to the EU.

*Riven

I would certainly give much autonomy to hospitals. The French model of health funding is much better in my view - government pays, but private companies provide.

Same for schools. I am really excited about the free schools and academies. If they take off then there is a real chance that the teachers' unions will be broken, and the kids might come before the vested interests for once.

What about the cuts to housing benefit? I don't really understand that. I can see that it is unappealing to right-wing thinkers to have people receiving what sounds like a lot of money on housing.

But the result will surely be that poor families have to move to areas with cheaper (in some cases much cheaper) housing - where is there cheaper housing? - in areas of deprivation where there is little work. We're heading for a worsening ghetto situation here aren't we? With even less opportunity to get out as people no longer live where there is any work.

Is the state pension means tested?

The French model of healthcare involves people paying (to a lesser or greater extent) for it - is that part of the model that you wish to see here?

The privatisation of the NHS makes me weep and I'm so surprised that there's not more fuss. PLus none of the issues of how it will work in practice have been addressed (huge data protection isses etc) but obviously that's not your concern.

I was readng a few days ago about London commuters camping at Lee Valley North London because they cannot afford a house in London and do not want to commute for hours each day or because heir house is 100s of miles away and commuting is impossible.

Given that people are living in central London on Housing Benefit who do not work I would have thought those people moving out of London so that commuters can afford to live nearer work would have been a good thing. These 'campers' are often livng away form family in a tent just so they can work -wile a benefit claimant sits in a house in central London paid for by the state and does not work.

My own sister lived in Central London on benefits for years. She could have moved out but chose not to. She was not looking for work - it was a lifestyle choice.

So put all the people who aren't in work in areas which are already deprived with no job opportunities and leave them there.

Again, an excellent example of perfect tory ideology.